Never Listen to Speedy
by KF fan
Summary: It's almost the big day for KF & Jinx. What's that mean? Right! A bachelor party and a bachelorette party. Everybody does it. What could go wrong? See what happens when some super powered teens follow the advice of a certain freaky archer.
1. Chapter 1

2:17 A.M. this particular night, was either very early Saturday or very late Friday, depending on whether you're starting out or finishing up. For seven extraordinary teen boys shuffling along the pavement of one of the paths through Jump City Park, overlooking the bay, it was when they were finishing up.

All seven had on their finest big night out clothes, fancy print shirts artfully untucked underneath a suit or just paired with dress pants, but four of them, both of the red heads, one of the two african americans and the shortest one looked beaten by the events of the night just then coming to a close. Two of the other three smiled furtively.

It was definitely less amusing to the blue eyed orange haired teen in the beer stained suit and champagne spotted print shirt. It was the day of his wedding but he didn't look quite ready to celebrate the upcoming nuptials. His hair was going in every direction, held in place by dried beer, champagne and whipped cream among other inadvertant pomades. A button was gone from his print shirt as was the zipper from the front of his pants and a belt loop from the back. He groaned as he looked across the bay at the silhouette of the T shaped building in the middle of the bay. Two small lights, the size of car tail lights most onlookers might have said, but somehow 200 feet up in the air, approached the top of the tower and then disappeared from view on the roof.

"I hope she'll forgive me," the orange haired teen sighed then returned to the curb across the street in the park overlooking the bay. His friends sat there, six of them in a row, grumbling or faintly smiling but all recalling what'd happened that night as they sat there at the curb.

"What'd she say, Wally?" asked one of the other unkempt teens, the african american of similar height and build.

"She didn't say anything," grumbled the orange haired teen while tugging at the crotch of his pants. Something didn't feel quite right. "Cassie said they're going back to the Tower and to give them a half hour."

"We have to wait a half hour? Oh man! I mean . . I could really use a shower right now."

"So could I, Ty. But I told Wonder Girl we'd wait a half hour so that Jinx could do whatever she's gonna do and not see me," he explained as he sat down at the curb beside his friends.

"She really cares about that sort of thing, Wally?"

"Of course. She's always aware of superstitions and things. I mean, duh, she's Jinx. You're always aware of heat and fire, arent' you?"

"Wally. My head is not always on fire."

"Yeah, hehe," chuckled the slender blond haired teen at the end of the line along the curb. "And she already saw you today, Wally, practically all of you!"

The redhead narrowed his eyes and turned angrily toward not the slender, six foot tall blond teen but toward the other redhead in the middle of the seven teens sitting on the curb.

"Yeah, she did. Remind me of it the next time I ever consider listening to Speedy, again. Ever."

A couple others grunted agreement as the blond teen waved one hand to catch everyone's attention.

"Hey, guys! Guys! Watch as I get even better looking!" said the blond teen and he pulled a ring off his finger. In an instant, blond hair turned black and pale skin went a rich dark green. He got up and put the ring in his pocket and took a sniff behind Wally.

"Dude, haha, you've got scent of . . champagne and . . whipped cream and . . . all kinds of different breaths and . . . some kind of . . chocolate all over you. What was going on in that back room?!"

"Never mind!" he said through gritted teeth and cast another angry glance at the other red haired teen. ". . . suffice to say, I still feel . . sticky . . all over."

"Me, too." grumbled Ty before casting a similar angry glance at the other redhead.

For a few moments none of them spoke, only frustrated sighs punctuating the silence. Finally, they all turned to the green one up and stretching his legs. He was now in front of the short, black haired one, giggling and thrusting his hips back and forth in time to music in his head.

"I'll never forget seeing you out there," he laughed. "You!? Ahahahahahaha!" He swung his hips back and forth some more, doing a suggestive dance to a song in his head.

"Cut it out, Gar," demanded the other, much larger african american teen among them.

"Hey. I'm complimenting him. He's a . . good little dancer."

The black haired boy shot to his feet to stand toe to toe with the green skinned boy, only he was 5 inches shorter.

"Enough with the height, Logan."

"Jeez. Back when I was shorter than you it was okay to make fun of me."

"Oh, come on. That was Cy. I didn't say anything about you being small. And now that you're six foot one and I'm still five eight you always harp on it. Well, you better enjoy it while you can. S.T.A.R. Labs says I'm going to be six one."

The green teen reached around and patted the other's rear.

"Hey, don't be so defensive. You were one of the ones picked."

The other boy backed away, defusing the confrontation. "Yeah, lucky me, got to be humiliated in front of 200 women including ours!"

"Some day you'll look back at this and laugh, Dick," suggested the burly african american teen.

"Yeah. I'll laugh and I'll say, 'Wasn't that the time I listened to Speedy?'."

The other redhead finally stood up.

"You know, I'm detecting an undercurrent of distrust. Don't deny it. I'm sensitive about these things . . . . . . . Gahd! Listen to you guys whine. Did everything turn out that bad? Are you guys hurt or anything? You didn't end up with police records. Your precious mentors won't find out about you. You had a little fun like you never had before. We should all try every different kind of fun. That's what I say. What's the problem?"

Dick nearly leaped at him grabbing the dirty lapels of his suit jacket.

"Do you know what was going on in that . . . so called 'champagne' room? Do you know what I had to put up with?"

The other redhead was blase. "Uh . . yeah short stuff. I was in there, too. And, you made some good coin tonight, didn't you? Didn't you?"

The shorter, black haired boy sunk back down to where he had been sitting on the curb between the orange haired teen and the smaller african american teen.

"How 'bout you Wally? . . . Wally?"

"Six hundred forty seven . . . wait," Wally reached down the front of his dress pants and pulled out a crumpled bill. He unfolded it, saw it was a ten and put it in his pocket. "Six hundred fifty seven dollars," he grumbled. "Half of it in one dollar bills and they were all tucked into my . . . . ! "

A couple of the others chuckled as he shook his head.

"Hey, still legal tender for debts public and private no matter where they've been!" chirped Roy. "Hot Spot! How 'bout you?"

"Four hundred eighty six bucks."

"See? See, little guy?" he said patting the top of the black haired boy's head. "Good money just for making some women happy."

"Older women," grumbled Ty. "Place was a damn cougar den."

"I didn't make quite as much as my fellow redhead, speedster buns, five sixty eight for me but I'm not whining about it."

"You wanted to do it," remarked the dark eyed teen on the end in the impeccable italian suit and with shoulder length dark hair.

"And they wanted me to, Flounder, so the world was perfectly in sync. You could have, too. but, oh, wait. You're a . . . gentleman," he said finishing in a breathless gasp.

"I am, Roy. I don't do . . . that! Certainly not in front of 200 cheering and leering females."

Speedy was about to respond when, literally out of thin air, Kyd Wykkyd appeared on the street in front of Wally, pointing at Wally and doubled over as if laughing but making no sounds.

"Whoa!" shouted Cy jumping to his feet but Wally held an arm out and shouted to Cy to defuse the situation.

"It's cool, Cy! It's cool. Elliot's not working the other side of the street any more."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You're sure, Wally?"

"Positive. Even though he's . . . ,"

Deep sigh.

" . . making . . fun . . of . . me. He does courier stuff in a few cities. He . . . Elliot?"

The others watched as the slender little gray and black clad, red eyed teleporter spoke to Wally via sign language. Some of it required no ability to sign. When he imitated a hip thrusting dance motion then pointed at Wally and seemed to double over in laughter, berlitz translation books were not needed. Wally signed back to him, speaking his words as well.

"How . . were . . you . . there? . . . . . . . . Following . . Jinx? . . . . It . . wasn't . . what . . I . . intended . . Elliot . . . . . . No! . . . . Yeah . . . . a-a . . . brawl . . on . . . the . . . other . . . side . . . . . . It . . wasn't . . that . . funny . . was . . it? . . . . . Of . . course . . you're . . invited . . Elliot. . . Both . . Jinx . . and . . I . . want . . you . . there."

Wally got up from the curb, stepped toward the little teleporter and gave him a hug. Kyd Wykkyd pointed at him one more time, imitated a suggestive hip thrusting dance move and doubled over in silent laughter before teleporting away.

Wally turned to Speedy. "Somebody else lauging at me, thanks to you."

"God. You guys are so disappointing to me. Where's your sense of adventure? You could look back on this as one of the most fun nights of your lives but you're gonna let it be the worst. What a bunch of uptight whining babies."

No sooner had Roy spoken than Wally suddenly materialized in front of him, having moved the 15 feet essentially instantaneously, and taken Roy's half upturned collar in his hands.

"Babies?! Thanks to you, Roy, I was one of the exotic dancers at my own fiancee's bachelorette party!"

Roy smirked. "Hey, yeah, you were, weren't you . . . . that is pretty funny."

"Aaarrrggghhh!" Wally grumbled then pushed Roy backward.

"Oh, come on, Wally? You don't think it's even a little funny, in retrospect? Not even a little? You! Forced to . . . " Roy did a smooth hip thrusting dance, "And there they all are at the big banquet table . . !"

"It does seem a little funny, Wally," muttered the green teen.

"Well, I don't think it's funny at all," said the teen with long black hair. "It was tawdry. Wallace has standards. He-"

Cyborg snickered out loud.

Hotspot giggled, quickly stifled it then giggled again.

Roy stared intently at Wally. Slowly, a corner of his mouth rose upward. He saw Roy watching him and tried to stop it. His lips trembled. He tried to make them two horizontal lines but couldn't. The corner of his mouth rose up some more and finally the softest chuckled issued from between those curled lips.

Roy grinned in response.

"You're so lucky tomorrow, I mean, today is the big day, Roy. I don't really feel like being mad at anyone. Not even you."

Wally walked over to a disappointed Garth and offered him a hand up as the others still seated also got up. While he did, he wondered, again, how had it gotten to this point. Things had seemed so orderly the morning before. He had such a feeling of happy expectation, of being on the precipice of something wonderful. Then, some fun and then . . . humiliation.


	2. Pink haired bridezilla

How had things spun so far out of control, wondered Wally looking across the bay in the dark.

Thinking about it, he realized that things hadn't just that night gotten away from them, or at least him. It'd been weeks.

There had been popping the question to Jinx, just beating her to it, and then telling all the other Titans, Jinx's mother and Flash even the Justice League. Everyone was so happy. Congratulations all around. And, eventually, he and Jinx realized that everyone else in the hero community had a sense of their, not just his and Jinx's but all of their freakiness and was happy to see a sort of normal thing happening among them. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl marry. The little details like girl hits boy over the head with sign and puts boy in cage, boy fakes out girl into ruining her own room, girl tortures boy with level 4 containment device, well, that could be fluffed over in the happy glow of announcing the nuptials.

Jinx and Wally had talked about what they wanted for the ceremony. Just a small thing, us and family and a few friends. Nothing special. No big production number. They'd both said it that way. The important thing was their love, not the trappings of the ceremony that made it official.

And that's what they told everyone. Just a small thing. Us and family. A few friends. Of course you can be there, Gar! Ha ha ha. Nothing special. No big production number. They said some version of that to everyone they told of their engagement. And a funny thing happened. Everyone reacted the same way. Or, actually, there were two slightly different ways that heroes and friends reacted based entirely on the sex of the person being told. The women all gave Jinx a slightly disappointed look. Oh . . okay. If . . . that's what you really want. The men all gave Kid Flash a look of pity, slow nods then slow shakes of the head. You poor bastard. Kid Flash was perplexed. Why did Green Lantern seem like he was offering him condolences? Superman stared at him a moment and shook his head then walked away pleading that he had to do something at the Watchtower command center. Plastic Man burst out laughing. But he was always laughing, wasn't he? There wasn't anything to that.

Wally wasn't sure how it started. Two months after they'd announced their engagement, Jinx still agreed that the ceremonies would just be a small, private affair. Maybe he noticed a little less certainty in her voice as she said it, but they were agreed on what it would be. Jinx wouldn't change her mind. Jinx was the kind to dig in her heels once she'd come to a decision. Having a spread of months between the announcement and ceremony didn't matter. And there was a good side to it, too. Because, he and Jinx came to realize what a lot of people thought when they were told.

They told most of the Justice Leaguers at the same time. Flash was acting like a sort of proud father. His protege! Marrying! Jinx decided that being that powerful must dull your sense of tact. You can fight your way out of anything so you don't always do the little things. Like Wonder Woman! Gods! What a bitch!

It's a pleasure to meet you, Wonder Woman. Oh, okay . . Diana. Yes, Kid Flash and I are going to marry. Amazonian eyebrow raised then her gaze shifted from Jinx's eyes to Jinx's stomach. I'm so glad to meet you, Superman. Kid Flash has so much respect for you. Yes, he and I are going to marry. Kryptonian gaze from eyes to stomach. It's an honor to meet you, Batman. If you knew how scared Kid Flash and the other Titans are of you . . ! Yes, that's right, Kid Flash and I are going to marry. Cowl tilts slightly downward toward stomach.

After teleporting back down from the Justice League satellite to Keystone City and going to Flash's house, Jinx expressed her frustration. "They all think I'm knocked up!" she screamed to Kid Flash. He tried to deny it but an hour later, Oliver and Dinah came by, not as Green Arrow and Black Canary but in civilian attire, and Jinx had Wally and Flash let her tell them. Oliver reached forward and patted her belly, "Hey, is there a little red haired bun in that oven?" Wally thought she might explode but it had the reverse effect as saying it explicitly didn't leave unstated presumptions in the air.

Jinx explained that, no, she was not pregnant. She and Wally simply wanted to make things official. Dinah apologized for Oliver, but Jinx said it was okay. She preferred that someone just say it instead of it being all over their face but left unsaid.

So, having several months between the announcement and the ceremony was quite useful in dispelling mistaken presumptions. "I'll still be my svelte, beautiful self and all those Justice League jerks will realize they were wrong," she told Wally.

To hell with everyone's presumptions and preconceptions! The very idea of marrying at age 18 was a big raised middle finger to everyone and everything that had rejected her when she was a little girl and sent her on the road to super villainy. Marrying young is for white trash? Girls of taste and distinction just don't . . do that sort of thing? Fuck you. Wally and I'll both be 18 when I walk down the aisle.

Wally knew that was a part of her motivation. He could never convince her to do anything based on the idea that people said this was what you were supposed to do. He knew enough not to try any more. So, he thought he had her mile wide contrarian streak on his side regarding the wedding and the size of it. Not my Jinx!

But then . . things started changing. He couldn't put a red gloved finger on exactly when it happened but, at first slowly and then with a speed eclipsing his own, her attitude became different. Maybe it was those conversations with her mother that started it. Jinx's mother now owned and ran a farm in the hills just east of Jump City. Jinx and Wally visited and stayed overnight every few weekends or so. It seemed to do Jinx a lot of good. Her mother still felt tremendously guilty over having given Jinx up to relatives when Jinx was only a little girl. It didn't matter that she had no choice, that she was getting sicker and sicker, that Jinx's uncontrollable bad luck powers were ruining everything in their double wide trailer. Whether she could have helped her little girl or not, she felt guilty that she didn't. And she adored Wally for being the boy who helped her get to where she should have been.

So, when Jinx and Wally told her about their engagement, she was ecstatic. And when they told her about their plans for just a small ceremony, nothing special, she barely disguised her disappointment. She played along for a few months. Small ceremony. Nothing special. She would repeat those exact words, almost like a mantra. Wally thought, at first, that she completely agreed with them and that she agreed that those words were the perfect expression of what she also wanted. Small ceremony. Nothing special. Later, he realized that if she'd let herself have any freedom of expression about it, at all, she'd have started saying very different things.

It began with a conversation, late at night in the living room of Mrs. Murphy's farmhouse, about how tough things were when Jinx was starting school and about how little they had and how all the other kids treated Jinx horribly. Wally found his eyes getting watery. He could never stand those stories. So, when Jinx's mother made a tiny suggestion for the ceremony, a guest book for attendees to sign in, he thought that seemed harmless. "I know you two really love each other, so that day should be as beautiful as possible." A little fancy touch Jinx's mother had seen at the wedding of a friend of hers? "Sure," said Wally. Why not? Jinx deserved the best.

But it should be leather bound!

"Of course," said Wally.

And the paper should be acid free, like those special Easton Press books, the kind of paper that doesn't ever yellow or fall apart.

"Of-of course."

And the pen should be a Mont Blanc, not just some ballpoint piece of crap from Staples or something. Or better yet, a fountain pen. The pen at the guest register should be a fountain pen.

"Um, sure, if that's what you want, then that's what we'll have."

And they were off!

Wally found all her and her mother's resentments at how she'd been treated by people suddenly channeled with laser focus into showing those people. She'd show those fricking lowlife assholes by having such good taste that they couldn't hope to match it! Ha! Who's the white trash now, losers!?

For a couple weeks, things were hectic. Jinx sent him here and there across the globe to find exactly the right accoutrements to the wedding ceremony. It turned out to be very handy that her fiance had super speed. A leather bound guest register book from Hong Kong would be examined and pronounced wanting. "Mmmm. No. It's not exactly right. Look at the color of this leather. Too light. Doesn't suggest a substantial enough or important enough event. Take it back, speedster and try that place in Delhi. Chop chop!" she said with a slap of his rear.

Kid Flash would run the first book back to the fancy store in Hong Kong, offer his apologies and then speed off across the Indian Ocean to Delhi, then work his way through its maze of streets, the instructions from a tomtom or garmin not coming out nearly fast enough to help out a super speedster, to another fancy store.

Hi, I'm Kid Flash. I don't know if you've heard of me . . . oh, you have! That's great! . . . yeah, the suit is kind of a giveaway. I don't know if you know, but Jinx and I are engaged and . . . oh, you've heard of that too! CNN and tabloids? Mentioned it a dozen times? Really? Well, I'm trying to help her with the arrangments and . . . what's so funny? I'm-I'm trying to help her with the arrangements and . . . . really, what's so funny? Well, anyway, she thinks you might have just the right sort of guest registry book. May I see . . . . mmmm . . . yes . . . this seems very nice. May I show it to her? . . . No, she didn't come in with me. She's back in Jump City. You see . . I'm Kid Flash. I can . . . oh, great. Thank you. I'll be right back to either return it or pay for it. Thank you.

Yes, having a super speedster at your disposal was very convenient for making wedding arrangements. The products of the whole world were at her disposal in just a few seconds. It'd been outrageous for a few weeks. He felt like a superpowered messenger boy. But then things calmed down. She'd gone through the list of things she and her mother had talked about. We've gotta have that book just right, speedster. For my mama. We've gotta have exactly the right pen and the cards at everyone's place setting. It's for my mother, Wally, not me.

And things calmed down and there was the routine of training and the occasional calls to take care of some leftover Professor Chang flunkeys or Dr. Light. There was a normal feel to the routine.

And then Argent visited.

It turned out that they had met before Jinx had met Wally. They'd both been incognito in Gotham City. They'd met at a concert. Both had known who the other really was but neither said anything. They'd gone out for coffee afterward and shared a few laughs and walked away awkwardly, both thinking they should be friends but knowing the other was supposed to be the enemy. Now they were on the same side and fast friends.

Wally never found out exactly what had been said between them, but after that visit, there was no stopping her. Everything was under the bridezilla microscope. Everything. First she spent a whole day agonizing over the invitations. She had Wally sprinting to top end stationery stores in London, Rome, Shanghai and Tokyo among other places trying to find the most beautiful paper and printing to announce their marriage to the intended attendees. They all seemed fine to Wally, but Jinx professed to see important distinctions in the most infinitessimal differences in color and paper texture. It inspired Wally to joke about getting the ones with the cheap glue a la George from Seinfeld. He got her zero degrees kelvin stare.

She spent an entire afternoon issuing a flurry of directions to Cyborg about how the Tower would be decorated for the occasion. Cyborg had protested that he thought it looked fine. He received a withering critique of the stainless steel and navy blue walls and black marbled floors as perfectly suited for a moderately friendly fortress, a convention center or an airport concourse. She then launched into a series of instructions for decorations that he first tried to keep up with in a notebook then gave up and recorded as she tossed them over her shoulder while they toured the building. That molding is hideous! Make that column look like a tree! Oak. No! White birch!! Hide that overhead duct work. Use tree branches. Something with small but tightly packed leaves. Etc. . etc . . etc. .

There were some preparation demands made of the other Titans, but nothing like the demands made of Kid Flash. His own easygoing attitude toward what was acceptable took a vicious beating from her standards.

"And what are you going to wear?"

Wally held his arms out to indicate the skin tight red and yellow uniform he was wearing. She shook her head. "No."

"No?"

"No."

"But I actually like the suit now. It molds to my body. It's really comfortable and . . . ," he saw the look on her face. "No?"

"No. You are not going to wear your rear end displaying suit at our wedding. You'll wear this," she said opening a page of a fashion magazine to show him an elegant suit with tie and tails.

"You know that civilian clothes don't fit me that well unless they're loose. Speedster body and all . . . and . . ," he saw the look on her face. "Yes, I'll get it tailored to fit me whatever it takes."

"You and the best man and the ushers will wear mens wedding traditional! This will not be a spandex wedding!" she declared firmly in front of the other Titans as a way of summing things up for everyone. Wally found she was declaring a lot of things firmly. Other heroes could come in spandex, but the members of the wedding party, best man Robin and maid of honor Argent would wear traditional as would ushers Cyborg and Beast Boy.

Her wedding dress was a particular focus for Jinx. She tried 32 different wedding dresses produced by the biggest names of haute couture, sprinted one after another to Jump City by Kid Flash and then sprinted back to Paris or Milan. She finally found one with Gar's help. Now that he was such a pretty boy after his growth spurt, he'd actually modeled for a couple designers. Everyone wanted to show that they were green these days. Gar suggested a certain designer. Kid Flash sprinted to Milan and returned with a dress covered in white cloth roses and with a very slightly off white, grayish background color that perfectly complimented her skin and hair. Gar got several kisses for his help.

Wally expected that a girl would take a strong interest in her wedding dress. He didn't expect that same sort of interest to extend to the silverware at each reception place setting, the glasses, the candles, the plates, the bowls, the table clothes, the napkins, the chairs, the flowers at the tables, the music to be played, the wording of their vows, the menu of food to be served, the arrangements for alcohol, their rings, the soup to be served, the salad to be served and even the hors d'oeuvres.

Kid Flash found himself sprinting all over the globe to find the perfect example of each of these items. He almost regretted that his fiancee was such an intelligent, widely read girl. It gave her new mania wider scope. He finally reached a point of exhaustion and a point where agonizing over something was so ridiculous that he just had to stop and complain.

Toothpicks.

Jinx wanted the waiters at the reception to serve, among other treats, a tasty little scallop wrapped in bacon thing, speared with a toothpick. Only she'd decided it shouldn't be just any toothpick. It should have something on the end. No not just frizzy plastic. Please! Everyone has those. So common! Jinx spent an hour researching toothpicks available around the world. She marched into the great room in front of the other Titans with a sheaf of papers in her hand. She held one out in front of Kid Flash.

Go to this address in London, Wally and get me a sample of this one with a miniature Big Ben on the end! Wally reluctantly took the paper, seeing his smirking friends out of the corner of his eye. He sprinted to London and back handing a single toothpick to her.

Detailed inspection. Mmmm. No. This is kind of a cheesy plastic, isn't it? Take it back to London. Maybe the ones from Mumbai with little Taj Mahals on the end. No, no, go to Paris, after you bring it back to London, Wally, go to Paris and get me a sample of this other one in this book with an Eiffel Tower on the end of each one!

"Oh, come on, Jinx!"

"Wally!"

"Jinx! No! This is ridiculous! A small ceremony? Nothing special? Do you remember those words? Because they're so far in the rear view mirror they're not even a visible speck. You're obsessing over toothpicks, now. Toothpicks!

She was stopped in her tracks. Toothpicks. It was hard to see them as actually being significant. She sheepishly admitted having been a bit over the top. Wally contested it being only a bit, but things calmed down after that. And she seemed to have no hard feelings at his having drawn a line in front of everybody. But there were still a lot of arrangements to be made and things to be checked on.

And when they started checking on all these things, a wonderful thing happened. Many of the business specializing in these things had been helped by the Titans. Offers to work for half price and even greater discounts were made without any prompting by Jinx. One florist offered to Jinx to work for free with Kid Flash at her side. Jinx graciously thanked him and walked out beside her smiling fiance. She looked away from him.

"I know what that smile is."

"Uh huh."

"You think that people being nice to us proves that your glass is half full perspective on things is right."

"Well . . "

"People aren't always this nice speedster."

"No, but it'd be a shame to pretend that they never are."

And then there was the minister. Wally and Jinx had both been stumped on that one. Despite her interest in hinduism, neither of them was really religious. And even if one of them had been, who do you get to do a ceremony at Titans Tower with half the Justice League in attendance? Father Non-descript would probably crap his pants at the sight of Jinx, Raven and the others. Then, Wally's adoptive father, Flash, said he could get somebody perfect for it.

A half hour later, a call came in to the communications center at Titans Tower. Wally and Jinx wondered why they were looking at the grim face of Batman. And then he said something about being a minister. It was a little like finding that the guy in the black hood who lopped off heads for the king with an ax also wrote poems. Wally and Jinx both hemmed and hawed. Batman?! But they didn't have any other options. Sure. Thanks.

He said he was happy to perform the ceremony but his enthusiasm didn't seem to require his cracking the least smile. And, somehow, he didn't seem to appreciate the ominous vibe he gave off when he told them, on the giant communications screen, that no one had lived to go back on vows given in his presence. There had to be better ways to say that. Thanks a lot. Real reassuring, Bats. See you next week.

Finally, just a couple days before the ceremony, things were coming together, arrangements almost all made, gift registries set up at Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and a few other stores, and deliveries starting to be made to the Tower. At last, Jinx's wedding dress arrived as well as the bridesmaids' dresses. There was, finally, not much for Wally to do and he was hanging around in the great room reading. The Tower was almost empty. A couple other heroes had arrived early, Hot Spot and Wonder Girl, but everyone outside of Wally, Jinx and Argent had gone to some dopy ceremony at Jump City Hall. Stupid politicians. They were always ginning up reasons to have their pictures taken with the Titans. Wally hated it.

He was starting a new chapter of his book when he noticed Jinx and Argent also coming into the great room, their arms loaded with dresses, various spools of thread and a packet of pins and needles.

"Thought you were going to do that downstairs," he offered to them.

"We were," said Argent, "But we thought it might be helpful to get your input at each point along the way."

"Geez, I am a Flash, you know. You could just call me on the intercom and I'll come running."

"It's almost too crowded in our room for me and Argent," said Jinx.

Wally shrugged. Whatever. He went back to his book. So, it took a lot of their talking back and forth before he picked up on the source of their concern. He looked up as Jinx was pinning the back of a dress that Argent had put on.

"-can't just hold one side in place and get it exactly even!"

"Well, then try and hold out both sides!"

"I can't. You need to hold it with one hand and pin with the other. I've only got two hands. I can't do both sides."

"How 'bout you, Wally?" asked Argent over one shoulder.

"Huh?"

"Help your fiancee and me get these dresses right."

Wally shrugged and marked his place in the book. Okay. He zipped over to were they were at the edge of the great room closer to the elevators. He tried his best and really thought he was doing things just as Jinx asked. But nothing seemed to satisfy her.

"I did too hold the hem out just the way you said!"

"No, you didn't Wally. The pattern wouldn't match up the way you were holding it."

"He's hopeless," said Argent. "Typical guy. He'd make a better manniquin than a seamstress."

The pause filled the air.

"Hey, there's an idea!" chirped Jinx.

"No way!" said Wally. "Never! Not going to happen! I don't care what you say."

Wally's first dress was relatively pain free. After peeling off his Kid Flash uniform and squeezing into the off white dress, Jinx and Argent only stuck him with pins three times on that one, the bridesmaid dress for Wonder Girl.

"I look ridiculous " and "I feel ridiculous" Wally alternately moaned.

"How is this worth anything for a dress that's supposed to fit Cassie?"

Jinx stuck a pin into a seam.

"Ow!"

"Oh, sorry."

Wally felt Argent's hand smoothing over the dress at his rear. "You're so muscular back there, you just pull the dress back instead of out. And your waist's so small. It's easy to fit a dress to you."

Wally bit his lower lip. At last they were finished the humiliating process. And just in time. The others were due back before long. So, when Argent suggested they should do Jinx's dress too, while they had him there, Wally put his foot down. No way. Out of the question.

They seemed to stick twice as many pins into him working on Jinx's wedding dress. Ow! Come on. Ow!

And then there was the matter of the veil and bodice. Argent worked for several minutes at the front of the dress, smoothing her hand over Wally's chest trying to get the lace that would frame Jinx's cleavage to stand out "in just the most exceptional way". She pinned it this way and that, asked Jinx to stand up and come out front of Wally and check out the way it looked. It seemed like the two of them stood there forever, chin in one hand, staring at him.

"He's got really nice skin. He's almost pale enough to have that dress be right for him," said Argent.

"Um, hello! I'm a guy."

"Obviously," said Jinx.

"Are you almost done? These long sleeves are completely restrictive. I can barely move in this dress."

"Well, don't move fast. We don't need you to separate all the seam work the haute couture house did," said Argent. "Now lets try that long veil."

Wally groaned as the two of them fixed a long veil atop his head and went about adjusting that as well as some of the other things he was sure they'd already done yet somehow had to do again. So, he was in full bridal regalia when the -ding- of the elevator sounded and the other Titans plus Hot Spot and Wonder Girl emerged.

Beast Boy fell down laughing, on the floor right next to a gasping Cyborg. Starfire and Wonder Girl each made it a step further. Hot Spot was on his knees just past them, guffawing through tears. Robin stopped, giggling, in front of Wally.

Raven lsolemnly ooked him from dress bedecked head to toe. "So . . this is the mens wedding traditional, is it?"


	3. No to Masterfish Theater

That had been bad.

Wally didn't quickly live down being seen by all the others wearing Jinx's wedding dress and veil. And he had to endure the story being retold to each new arrival at Titans Tower in the days leading up to his wedding day. Everyone got a huge kick out of the story, imagining Wally, not in his skin tight red and yellow suit but in a long bridal gown, the curves of which did not match those of the teen speedster. Most laughed heartily. Speedy smirked and muttered, "My dream come true and I'm not here to see it!" Aqualad seemed to think Kid Flash had been degraded by the experience. "Oh, Wallace! Women's clothing!"

But Wally just rode it out. He'd been hazed by seniors when he was a 14 year old in a regular school and had had to let them catch him and paddle him and get away with humiliating him so that he didn't compromise his secret identity. This was no big deal compared to that. He was 18 now. Besides which, he didn't focus so much on what had been done to him but by whom. He prodded and cajoled and eventually got Jinx to admit in bed that the whole thing had been her and Argent's plan. She laughed at him falling for it but was impressed at how easily he shrugged it off and fell asleep contentedly on his chest not thinking less but more of him.

The Tower really started filling up on the day before the wedding as Hot Spot arrived from a mission in the far east and Arrowette, Wonder Girl and Mary Marvel all dropped in.

Titans East minus Mas and Menos, who were back in Guatemala but expected on the day of the wedding, had arrived the day before. Most every room at Titans Tower was now taken. Ironically for the run up to the joining in marriage of a young man and young woman, all the young men and women divided into two separate groups. The boys, Kid Flash, Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Speedy, Aqualad and Hot Spot, were all up in the great room. The girls, Jinx, Argent, Raven, Starfire, Bumblebee, Arrowette and Mary Marvel were all down in Wally and Jinx's room.

As usual, Robin wasn't joining in the fun and games with the other guys but was diligently checking police communications and interpol channels to see if there were any hints of pending super villain activity. Gar caught Wally's eye and nodded over toward the communications center just off the great room. Robin could just barely be seen past a column, staring at the keyboard typing searches for various terms. Taktaktaktaktaktaktaktaktak

Ding!

XINOTHIUM-no cross references with interpol communiques during the specified search period

Gar rolled his eyes at the search result on the oversized screen. Seeing if anyone in law enforcement anywhere has used the word "xinothium" in the last 2 days? God. Wally sighed then nodded to Gar. I'll take care of this.

He sped up to a spot beside Robin in a thousandth of a second.

"Whatcha doin' oh great leader?"

Taktaktaktak- Robin kept typing. But then Wally reached over, taktaktaktaktaktaktaktaktaktaktaktaktaktak and typed a bunch of nonsense letters in the middle of Robin's search term before -taktaktak he hit -enter-.

Ding!

SLADEQZXCWPYRBVQXYTMZBOT-no cross references with interpol communiques during the specified search period, said the computer.

"Wally!"

"You . . didn't want to make sure nobody was reporting the activities of potential Slaydquizshuhcowhipyrobivqu-"

"Wally!"

"Dick, you really need to calm down. Do I have to throw you in the pool again? You know I can do it. In between blinks I'll have you up there and in the deep end with pink water wings and a little mermaid life preserver."

"Do . . not . . do . . that, speedster. I'm helping."

"Helping what? Did Jump City pass some law that prohibits you from having fun? Back off, batalito."

"I'm-I'm just trying to make sure that things will be quiet tomorrow . . . for you . . and for Jinx." Robin nearly whispered the last parts. Kid Flash was touched. He pulled Robin up off the chair in front of the communications console and gave him a hug.

"That's very nice of you, oh great leader," he said with a pat of his nearly granite hard spikes of gelled hair as they separated. "But I've already taken care of it."

Wally thought Robin's expression fit his having rolled his eyes but he couldn't tell with his friend's omnipresent mask on. "You're letting a couple of them come to the frigging ceremony! How is that taking care of it? You really think you can rely on them to behave, Wally?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

"Because they like her and they're afraid of her. They know she'd kill the one who ruined her wedding day. Besides, we get something else out of it."

"What?"

"The use of the grapevine, little Bat."

"Huh?"

"Think big picture, Dick. Elliot's not a crook anymore anyway. And See-More'll hold off on his plans but he's hardly the only bad guy in Jump. So, I told See-More to spread the word around that, in addition to every young hero, all of us plus Superboy and Captain Marvel Junior and Supergirl, there'll be more than 20 League members in Jump that day, including all the heavy hitters, Big Blue, Bats, Diana, Flash and two Lanterns. Anyone so much as jaywalks this weekend and they'll have five Justice Leaguers tackling them to the pavement."

Robin smiled and nodded and gave Wally a pat on the back. "Nice, speedster. Nice."

"Care to join the rest of us, then, streetlight?" said Kid Flash, gesturing to the other teens laughing at something on the giant plasma screen.

Robin smiled. "Sure."

And, for a couple hours, as afternoon headed into evening, the seven teen hero boys laughed and joked back and forth and told outrageous stories about themselves and each other like any other group of teen friends might have. Garrulous Roy was the loudest voice in the group and highbrow Garth the quietest but no one was left out. But, aside from the flow of stories and laughs, one by one the others each had a few quiet moments alone with their friend, Wally.

"You . . do know what you're doing, tomorrow, right?" asked Hot Spot.

"Dude. You're sure of this, right? You know . . Jinx and everything?"

"You and Jinx are meant to be, aren't you, Wallace?"

"I saw her before you but I see the way you two look at each other. You know it's right, don't you?"

"I know I doubted at first. I mean, she was a villain, after all. But you'll be happy together, won't you? I-I know sometimes people think I don't care about anyone being happy. But I do want you to be happy, Wally. You and her will be happy, won't you?"

And then there was Speedy.

"Are you sure of this," asked Roy when he was alone in the kitchen with Wally. He gave a pat to Wally's hip. "You could still do so many, I mean, so much, Wally."

"Yeah, I know what you mean, Roy."

"Before you sign that long term contract with that team, tomorrow, Wally consider how you could do as a free agent. Hmm? The other team wants you. Believe me, Wally. They want you. They have scouts everywhere looking for players like you. You are just what they're looking for. Six one, good looking, zero fat, ridiculously athletic. You could get a no-trade contract if you want, Wally. Special benefits! Everyone on that team would give you . . benefits, Wally. Believe me. I understand both teams. I'll be your agent. I just want 5 percent."

Wally rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the offer, Roy, but the sex with Jinx is fantastic. I'm not looking to change teams."

Roy sighed. "Had to try, Wally."

Kid Flash zoomed back to the great room and was talking to Robin until he heard a shout from Speedy.

"Alright! Let's kick things into gear!" shouted the archer over the voices of the others and threw a beer in Wally's direction. Wally caught it out of mid air and inspected the bottle.

"Beer? You do know I'm only 18?"

"Uh . . yeah, speedster. But, come on. It's the night before the big day. You need to have a bachelor party. We'll take you out and do it up right. Wine. Women. Song. The works."

Beast Boy, Cyborg and Hot Spot clapped and cheered. "Yeah! Party, speedster party! Speed-ster Par-ty! Speed-ster Par-ty!"

More beers were tossed from the kitchen.

"You're not old enough to drink and you can't legally get into any clubs, Wally." Robin interjected.

"Uh . . . yeah, that's right, Captain Goodtimes," said Speedy. "And how many teenagers does that actually stop? Judges?" he spun and pointed toward Beast Boy, Cyborg and Hot Spot.

"None!" they laughed in unison.

Then a tug came from a third direction, not Robin or Speedy. "Wallace," began Aqualad trying to sound calm and authoritative. "You're not some frat boy like Roy and those three. I know you appreciate fine culture." He turned to the others. "He and Jinx went to the opera with me to Marriage of Figaro and Tannhauser and to that Ibsen play and those two wonderful ballets, " Garth told the group with a nod. Yes, it's true. "And now I have tickets for Le Corsaire, Wallace," Garth held them up for all to see. "Fourth row center. It'll be a wonderful exhibition of the artistic athleticism that young men are-"

"Don't listen to Masterfish Theater over there, Wally!" interrupted Speedy with a gesture toward Aqualad. "This is your bachelor party! Your . . bachelor . . party. You can pay for some dried up , dead art experience any time you want. This is your bachelor party. But, did you really go to those things with him?

"Yes," Wally declared. But Speedy seemed to pick up on something about his tone.

"And . . did you like it, Wally?" the archer questioned.

Wally let out a long sigh.

"Tell him Wallace!"

Another, longer sigh. "Garth."

Speedy led Beast Boy, Cyborg and Hot Spot in chuckles.

"But you and Jinx both said you loved our little cultural outings! You said you loved Tannhauser-"

"I loved the overture, Garth. The rest of it . . ehh, not so much. I liked the play, at least."

"And Marriage of Figaro?"

Kid Flash made a face of mild displeasure.

"Coppelia?"

Greater displeasure.

"Swan Lake?"

Greater still.

Aqualad got up from the couch where he sat and approached Kid Flash. "But why lie to me, Wallace?"

"Jinx liked that Coppelia, ballet, Garth. But the rest . . . ? We-we like being around you and it meant so much to you, we just didn't have the heart to say that we didn't like it. The minute we left our seats each time you were going on about how great this dancer or that singer had been. It felt like we'd be hurting you if we said otherwise. We just didn't have the heart."

Aqualad looked crestfallen. Kid Flash zipped to his side and put an arm over his shoulder. "Garth. I apologize. We should have told the truth, somehow. We just didn't want to alienate you. We both like you a lot."

Garth sighed and seemed to gather his strength. "Apology accepted, Wallace. But how about tonight's ballet? Le Corsaire is very accessible to all sorts of audiences. It's one of the most athletic ballets. You . . "

Garth could see Wally shaking his head.

"No?"

"No. Sorry, Garth. But let me tell you why. It's something that's been bugging me for a little while. See, I caught a group of thieves the last week. These guys would rob a bank or grocery store or knock over an armored car and use a team of guys on high speed motorcycles to get away. They really coordinated things well, always dropping loot at an underpass where another bike would be ready to speed off just as fast in the other direction. I read about it, then made a point of patroling, quietly, till I was out there while they were pulling a job and yanked both their guys off their motorcycles. I asked 'em how the hell they ever thought they'd get away with it, with a Flash working in Jump City. They said that they thought I was just screwing Jinx in the Tower and that I only came out for super villains, that I wasn't really part of the picture in Jump City."

"Uh, Wally, dude? That's pretty much true."

"Well, maybe it was, Gar. But I don't want it to be. I don't want to be a total freak. I want to know what real peoples' lives are like. I want to live at least a little bit of a real life, to know what the rhythms of a real life are like."

Speedy stepped forward, sensing his opportunity. "And what's more real and norman and un-freakish than a blowout night of partying with your pals the night before your wedding."

The great room filled with whoops and cheers. When it quieted, Speedy opened up a compartment in his utility belt.

"I knew you'd come around, Wally. That's why I had these made," he said and flipped small laminated cards around the room to each of the other six teens. After catching it, each inspected his card. They were ID's. Fake ID's.

"You know, this is illegal, Roy!" Robin half gasped.

"Oh come on, bat mitzvah! What could happen? We take our buddy Wally out for some high powered fun his last night as a free man. We see some scantily clad women throw back some mildly mind numbing beverages and just generally have a lot of fun. What could happen?"

"I don't know, Roy . . . I don't think it's a good idea."

"Oh, sure, it's not as much fun as sitting in your room typing out case files, squirt-" Speedy knew his applause lines well and paused while Beast Boy, Cyborg and Kid Flash all snickered. "But other people might think so."

"Enough with the height cracks, Roy. I told you. S.T.A.R. Labs says I'll end up six foot one."

"Right. And just because you're five seven-"

"Five eight!"

"-Five seven and change while the rest of us, even Gar, are six one or more, why would you be the butt of short jokes?"

Robin fumed as his comrades chuckled some more. God! Shorter than Gar! Five inches shorter than Gar now, for god's sake!

He only slowly relaxed with the help of Kid Flash patting his shoulder. "Come on, Dick. He's just kidding. It doesn't matter." Robin calmed down and eventually gave a slight nod of assent that he'd go along with everything. He even agreed to be the designated driver of the T-Car.

But he fumed again when he, and the others looked at their fake ID's. He gritted his teeth and advanced across the great room at Speedy.

"Alan Retentive?! That's my bachelor party ID name? Alan Retentive?!"

"Sure. I just reversed two letters from what everybody already calls you. It was a natural."

"Roy!"

But Robin had competition as Aqualad was also advancing angrily on Speedy who looked nonplussed as he casually took a long swig from a bottle of beer.

"Garth Flounder?! My bachelor party name is Flounder?"

Speedy finished off his beer then let out a tremendous belch before starting toward the roof and the T-car. "Why not!?"


	4. Girl talk

Meanwhile, down on the 13th floor in the third room from the corner, all the girls were talking.

Jinx sat on the bed by the headboard, the center of attention, with the others arrayed around her like the petals of a flower about its center. Her best friend, Argent, lay on her side near the edge of the bed, Mary Marvel on the other side, Arrowette and Wonder Girl sat at the end with their feet over the footboard, perky Starfire was standing and Raven, Bee and Batgirl sat on chairs and Wally's desk. There were 9 young women heroes in the Tower after the boys had all left.

And Jinx was their focus. It wasn't just because of her impending marriage to Kid Flash. She was bright and witty and optimistic. She would have been the center of attention even if events hadn't dictated it. But everyone was having a wonderful time. Jinx was shocked at how good this collegial feeling among equals was. Of course, what girls had there ever been with whom to have friendships? At the Academy, Bee had been a rival, though one whom Jinx usually beat. There had been other girls with lesser powers, too, but the Academy worked to discourage friendships. Everyone had to be a bit paranoid, more than a bit inconsiderate. And then the Hive 5, had been all boys but her. She loved him and Wally was a sensitive guy, but still a guy. This kind of group girl thing was comfortable and pleasant in ways she couldn't quite put her finger on but which she liked anyway.

She regaled them with some stories about life with the HIVE 5, what slobs Billy and Mammoth, especially were. She contrasted them to Wally, who was also a bit of a slob. She pointed around the room to stacks of books and magazine, a half dozen wrappers from bags of potato chips to appreciative chuckles. Of course, she noted, it helped that Wally was a super speedster and could clean up just about anything in a few seconds. She told stories about skinny Wally's ridiculous appetite that Raven and Starfire corroborated. And it was all so carefree.

As they all laughed at a deadpan joke of Raven's, T-Car1 could be heard zooming off the roof toward the City, the red tail lights becoming visible out the window a few seconds later as it headed toward the City.

"Where do you think they're going?" asked Argent.

"I don't know but I heard a lot of Roy's voice from the hallway," smirked Wonder Girl. All the other girls joined in with rolls of the eyes and smirks of their own.

"So . . they listen to Roy?" asked Batgirl. "Not Dick?"

"In the social matters, the Robin is not the leader of the group," explained Starfire with a nod of emphasis.

"He'd be kind of out on an island if it wasn't for Wally," said Jinx to Batgirl. "Garth too. If not for Wally being interested in his classical music and high culture tastes, he'd be all alone, too."

"Roy calls him 'Masterfish Theater'," chuckled Bee.

"But . . Roy?!" laughed Argent. "They're listening to Roy?! I mean whatever they have planned, if Roy's leading the way and they happen to cross paths with a really pretty girl . . . !" giggled Argent

"Or boy!" Jinx guffawed, to a response of muted chuckles.

"Talk about a hound! And so persistent!" laughed Argent.

"He tried to talk me and Wally into a threesome!" Jinx laughed.

"God! Could you imagine going for his rap?" chuckled Argent.

She and Jinx doubled over laughing. Oh gods! So funny! Roy! She and Argent started imagining cheesy Roy pickup lines.

"I'm just a grownup cupid, baby! Ahahahahaha!"

"Archers do it with a six foot long tool Ahahahahaha!"

"You must be an archer too, because you've pierced my heart! Ahahahahaha!"

But something was wrong.

And, then, suddenly, she and Jinx straightened up and looked around and noticed that only Bee and Starfire were laughing with them. More shocking still, the others were avoiding eye contact.

Jinx realized right away. "Oh . . . no!" she muttered. "You're kidding!"

She glanced frantically around the room at Arrowette suddenly turned around and pretending to inspect Wally's books, Batgirl inordinately fascinated with the pattern of Jinx and Wally's bed spread, Wonder Girl staring intently at the ceiling plaster, Mary Marvel's eyes drawn to their bathroom door and even Raven looking at the lamp on the table beside Jinx and Wally's bed.

"But . . but . . but . . but . . you, too?!" Jinx finally shrieked at Raven. "You didn't?!"

Raven shrugged. "I needed some . . attention. He was there. He was much more . . "

"Charming," suggested Arrowette.

"Thank you. Much more charming than I ever thought he could be."

"More adult," added Batgirl. "I felt like I was seeing the real Roy."

"And it was . . . shockingly good," Wonder Girl finished with a chuckle.

Arrowette nodded as did Batgirl and Raven.

"I'd heard all the rumors, too," said Mary Marvel. "I couldn't believe the guy who talked to me like that, who said those things and . . . did those things with me was really the same guy Junior had told me about."

"Um . . . hello! what about Aqualad?" asked Argent, with no further explanation yet they all understood. "And half the wait staff of the restaurants in Jump City. Half the models in New York City during fashion week."

She picked up Jinx's fashion magazine and opened it to a Dolce and Gabbana ad featuring six male models, two naked and none fully clothed. She pointed to two of them and turned the magazine around for everyone in the room to see. "Him and him, too."

"Did you know," asked Jinx, "that he left the group at the wake for Wally's aunt so that he could do a threesome with the male and female teen USA gymnastics champions who were staying in the same hotel."

"Hot Spot on the down low," added Argent.

"What?!" demanded Bee spinning toward Argent. "Ty?!"

"That's what I heard."

"Well, I heard that Britney's spiral into tabloid hell really began after a fling with Roy when he broke it off," said Wonder Girl.

"I heard that too."

"So did I."

"I heard he had Alba, too," said Mary Marvel. "Posed as a personal trainer, got in and . . . !"

"Yup."

"Me too."

"I heard that Lohan fell apart after a weekend with him."

"I heard that too!"

"Where's he find the time to be a hero?"' wondered Jinx.

"Well, he doesn't bed everyone. Listen to this," said Argent. "I heard Paris Hilton wanted to take him to bed and Roy said quote, hey girl, I'm easy but I'm not automatic. No thanks."

The room filled with laughter.

"And I heard she made some pissy remark back like he'd better not expect to be her friend, and he said something like, 'If you were my friend, I'd hope the only benefits were a 401K and vacation time, you airhead skank."

Now they were falling down laughing.

"See, he's not all bad. And, we didn't marry him," Wonder Girl finally protested to Jinx. "We just . . had some fun with him."

Laughter all around.

"Not like you and Wally. So, tell us, Jinx," asked Wonder Girl with a smirk. "Was it love at first sight? Or just lust? I mean, those eyes, that body . . those buns . . that suit!"

Gales of laughter and agreeing nods.

"It was definitely love," said Jinx smiling wistfully. "I smacked him over the head and knocked him out then put him in a cage. Definitely love," she sighed.

More laughter.

"You-you hit Wally over the head the first time you met him?!" stammered Batgirl.

"He was fighting the six of us."

"The six of you?" asked Batgirl

"The HIVE Five," explained Jinx.

Batgirl looked at Argent for explanation. "But if they were called the-"

"Don't ask," Argent patted her shoulder.

"But he started right in with the 'you're too good for this' stuff," continued Jinx wistfully. "What kind of boy almost gets himself dissected because he wants to say that to you?"

"A boy who wants you pretty bad," muttered Mary Marvel breaking the silence that had followed Jinx's words.

"I knew it was going to come to this the first time I met you after you'd come over," said Argent.

"We met a couple times before that," Jinx explained to the group. "Usually at book stores. We should have felt like bitter rivals, good and bad, pale sorceress types but, for no particular reason, we started talking. She was clever."

"She was so haughty and condescending!" said Argent.

"Come on! Only at first. I thought you might be another ditzy do gooder but you weren't."

"So, after 15 minutes, she turned the vitriol dial down to 9," quipped Argent to the others.

"I admit, I . . could be just a little bit hard to get along with in those days," muttered Jinx, in a bashful tone they'd seldom seen from her, to more chuckles.

"Anyway," Argent continued. "She comes over to this side and I finally got to talk to her about it after the Brotherhood fight in Paris. And every time she mentions his name she does one of those little sex recollection looks down."

"I did not!"

Gales of laughter.

"You did too! She did!" said Argent and then she imitated the look, a faint smile as her eyes darted down to one side.

"Wally . . " Smile. Eyes down. " . . and I. . . . . if Wally," Smile. Eyes down.

The room nearly burst with happy laughter and several girls patted Jinx's shoulder.

"Was I . . was I that obvious?"

Argent nodded as did Starfire. "You know how miserable you made it for me to be miserable?" snorted Raven and the room swelled with laughter anew.

"Okay, I could have been more . . discreet," said Jinx as the room quieted. "But I wasn't used to being . . loved . . and loved for me, not, I don't know, some false idea of what I was, and not just for being beautiful," said Jinx fluffing her hair and turning her head as if posing for a photographer, eliciting only the faintest chuckles. "It was everything I wanted and not just in bed."

"Oh, I'll vouch for that," muttered Raven. "Against the door. Against the wall between their room and mine. On his desk. In the storage rooms. In the T-Car. On the roof. In the mayor's office before that key to the City ceremony, that time. No, not just in bed."

Guffaws echoed off the walls and then the room went quiet again.

" . . sorry about the, uh . . noise," said Jinx to Raven. Raven shook her head slightly. It's nothing. Don't worry about it.

"But, it's not . . not just the-the buns and the suit and the superspeed tongue and the vibrating . . " she glanced down and several eyebrows shot up.

His . . !?

"The thing is that he wants to connect in all the other ways, the-the higher ways, too. He always wants to spoon and we have these incredible hours long conversations. We have great silences, too. You know what I mean? He and I sitting up in bed and reading and just totally on the same wavelength. We'll finish a chapter and just look at each other and it's there. It's totally there," she finished softly to more chuckles and a cascade of awwwwwwwws. And then Argent sat up and reached over and hugged her, inspiring Mary Marvel, on the other side of the bed to do likewise. And, no group hug in her presence could possibly happen without Starfire taking part and the others joined in too so that, within seconds, Jinx was at the center of a 9 heroine group hug. Even Raven took part.

Finally everyone separated and took a seat somewhere. Jinx wiped at one eye. "You didn't see that. That was condensation or maybe a reaction to somebody's perfume. Anyway, enough about me. How about all of you?"

"What do you mean?" asked Batgirl.

"I mean, don't just put it all on me, what's Wally like, how does Wally do this, when does Wally do that? What about your guys?" said Jinx looking back at Batgirl.

"Don't look at me," she responded. "I did everything I could think of to get Dick but . .," Bat Girl looked around the room at the others chuckling. "No double entendre intended. But he just wasn't paying attention. Are you all sure that Aqualad's on the other team? He's smart and he's hot and . . "

Eight faces looked at Batgirl and nodded emphatically.

"Damn! I've talked to him a couple times. He's so cultured and mature and -"

" . . as a three dollar bill," said Wonder Girl.

Batgirl sighed. "Damn." The group looked to Starfire.

"I am not doing the dating of anyone right now," said Starfire. "I did the dating with the Robin for six months and it was fun. He has the very good buttocks and the large penis but also the affection and attachment issues," she added with a perky nod of the head.

The room was quiet for a few moments.

"Ooooooooookay, that was concise. Who's next?" asked Jinx trying to get the ball rolling again and then pointing at Mary Marvel.

"Um, okay, well, please don't broadcast this everywhere but Junior and I-"

"Captain Marvel Junior?"

"Yeah."

"You're not related to him?"

"What? No! Of course not. You thought . . ?! I'm Captain Marvel's sister. Freddy's not related to us."

"He's not here yet?"

"No. He's back in Fawcett City. We didn't think we should arrive together. My brother doesn't approve of the two of us . . we're trying to find a way to break it to him gently, so please, keep it to yourselves."

Most of the girls nodded. None of them really had to.

The group looked to Wonder Girl next. She sighed in frustration.

"Nope. I'm still looking. And it doesn't help to find out that Junior's taken. What a hottie he is, that wavy hair and that body!"

The chuckles filling the room were clearly agreement.

"I always thought Kid Flash was the cutest sidekick, protege, whatever they're supposed to be called. But I only met him one time before he got together with Jinx. We were both 12 years old up in the Justice League satellite and we bumped into each other. He looked so cute in that suit! What little buns! God! We stared at each other a few seconds and just as he was about to say something Diana came along and dragged me away with some line about not needing to talke to strange boys. I said, 'Diana! He's a hero! That's Kid Flash!' and she was all 'nope, you're too young to talk to him'. God! I think she probably figures I'm right now getting close, maybe within just 3 or 4 years of it being okay for me to talk to a boy."

After more chuckles, Bumblebee was next.

"I've got a few things simmering. Nothing's ready to bring to a boil just yet. I've seen Miles, Herald, I mean, but it's not a committed thing. I-"

"Nothing with Cyborg?" interrupted Argent.

"No. He and I just never quite clicked. I'll just say that there isn't anyone right now. Next!"

Arrowette raised her hand. "Okay, like half of those present, I had a night with Speedy and mistakenly thought it might mean something. I mean, we're both archers, both heroes. He's hot. He seemed to mean the things he said . . . Okay, that was wishful thinking. Also, like half of those present, I once had a complete crush on Aqualad, fat load of good that did me. And, I also met Kid Flash once and thought he was just the cutest boy alive, but now Jinx has driven the last nails into the coffin of that relationship opportunity. So, for the moment, I am, also, unattached, though looking, definitely looking. Weddings are supposed to be great places to meet eligible guys, aren't they?"

Jinx nodded then pointed to her best friend. "Who, me?" asked Argent. "Okay. I am also unattached. I have . . had the affections of a couple of the boys who will be attending tomorrow's ceremony. But nothing's going on right now. I don't have anything more to tell."

"Which only leaves . . ," Jinx smiled as she pointed to Raven sitting across the room. A hush fell over the room.

Raven began with a roll of the eyes. "I feel like this is a bad relationships anonymous meeting or something," she muttered then stood up. "My name is Raven and I'm a bad relationshipaholic," she stated then sat back down to laughs. "Okay, I've had a little bad luck with relationships. One guy I fell for turned out to actually be a, uh, dragon. My crush on Aqualad turned out not to be nearly as meaningful to him as Speedy's." Sigh. "Annoying little Garfield Logan turns into occasional male model and much more mature Garfield Logan right after I pretty much definitively reject him to end the annoyance he causes me, annnnnnnd every other guy I consider for even a moment turns out to have some kind of intractable personality issue or is already taken," she said, turning to Jinx as she finished.

Everyone expressed sympathy for Raven and then for a little while, the discussion splintered into each girl talking to her friend or the one next to her but finally, Argent stood up.

"People! People! This lovely young woman . . ," she extended one arm toward Jinx, "is going to be hopelessly under the thumb of a domineering speedster starting tomorrow. She-"

"What?! Domineering? Where'd you get that shit?" snapped Jinx.

"-she'll have taken a vow to be faithful and she'll probably start churning out little orange haired babies before long . . " the group laughed at Jinx fuming. "This may be our last chance to have a night of fun with our friend Jinx."

"Oh please! I'm marrying Kid Flash. I'm not going into a fricking convent or anything. What exactly do you have in mind, anyway?"

"Ah, nothing but the best. I've reserved a table for 9 at the most exclusive club in Jump City and I've got a little surprise planned for after that."

Jinx sighed. "Just so long as we don't see the guys. I shouldn't see Wally in the 24 hours before the wedding."

"You really take those things seriously, don't you?"

Jinx nodded emphatically.

"Don't worry," said Argent with a mischievous smile. "We'll never run into the guys where we're going. What do you say, People?"

The room filled with claps and cheers.


	5. The boys at clubs

"My GPS says I should take a left here to get to that second club," said Cy.

"No! Go right!" shouted Roy.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Positive. Go right."

Cy shrugged and turned right, driving T-Car1, to all outward appearances, a lime green minivan, through the streets of Jump City on a warm summer night. A minute later, the road hit a dead end at the loading docks of an abandoned warehouse.

"Another wrong turn. Never -hic- never listen to Roy," muttered Garth from the front seat beside Cy. His carping didn't make even the slightest impression on Roy who sat smirking in the back seat between Dick and Ty with Wally on the other side of Ty at the window. Luckily superpowered teen boys tended to be slender. And luckily the seventh of them was able to turn himself into the green cat presently looking over their shoulders from the hatchback area behind the back bench seat.

But it had been a night of wrong turns. First there had been Roy's venture into sartorial extremes. After everyone agreed to go out and celebrate Wally's last day as a single guy, they'd all changed into their best night out clothes. Aqualad returned to the great room from his guest room in a black Armani suit with a white Brioni shirt, and charvet tie, high class all the way. That was Robin's impulse too. He returned to the great room in a Canali suit and shirt. Kid Flash zipped back in a similar dark suit with an untucked white Cit shirt with a pattern of little flowers sewn into the cloth.

Speedy returned to the huge room wearing tight red leather pants and a black silk mesh shirt.

"Nice shirt, speedster," nodded Roy but Wally just stared back.

"What?" the archer feigned ignorance.

"What the hell are you wearing, Roy?"

"Clubwear. We're gonna go to at least one club in the course of the night."

"Jesus, Roy. You look like you're expecting to go to a string of Vegas sex clubs and then the Playboy mansion. You too, Ty," he said as Ty emerged from the stairs in black leather pants and a blue paisley shirt.

"Can we? Pretty please!" Roy pleaded with palms pressed together in supplication.

Wally took a deep breath. "I'm gonna pretend that I'm certain you're kidding. Come on, guys. We're gonna be together tonight. Could we not look like some of us stepped off the set of Boogie Nights? And, Gar. Vic," he added upon noting the distressed jeans and printed t-shirts both wore. "Jeez, a little more effort than that, huh? You can always leave a suit jacket in the T-car."

Amid much grumbling, Gar, Vic, Roy and Ty went back down stairs and returned minutes later dressed like Wally. Garth smiled at Wally. At last, someone asserting some standards!

Finally the group was ready and they all trooped up to the roof.

"Put on your cloaking rings now, before you forget," said Dick to Cy and Gar.

Cy pulled his ring onto one finger and immediately he had only consistently dark skin and two carmel brown eyes. Gar was about to pull on his but stopped.

"We don't have seating for seven in T-Car1, anyway, do we. I may as well morph small and then put it on when we stop, right?"

Everyone agreed to this and Gar turned himself into a green siamese cat jumping gracefully into the car then up over the back seat after Wally opened the door. Before the others got in, Cy pressed one of the buttons on his special set of keys.

Blip-Blop!

Two high pitched chirps like any other car might make. Only, like a transformer cartoon or something, the sleek silvery T-Car1 immediately adopted the outward appearance of a lime green minivan.

"Oh, man!" said a disappointed Ty. "Aren't you smart enough to give us some cool wheels?"

"I'm genius enough to be able to make our cool wheels look like something completely uncool," said Cy.

Everyone else got in amid some more grumbling. "Whatsa matter, couldn't make it a Pacer wagon like Wayne's World?" sniffed Roy.

"Nope. Too small. I tried to." said Cy before flipping a series of controls that looked like radio preset buttons but which caused the vehicle to start flying off the roof and across the bay toward Jump City. He landed it amid the deserted part of the warehouse district, turned a corner and they were just another bunch of guys out for a night of fun in a shitty car.

The first place they went was a huge club just barely out of the warehouse district. It had been a trucking company's headquarters just a few years before. Cy parked the minivan and the guys piled out. Gar changed himself back to human, dressed in his good clothes and then pulled on his cloaking ring. Instantly, green skin became pale and his hair became blond. The changeling appeared to be a pretty boy rich kid.

The guys got in line outside the club. They were 20 people back from the entrance but the line moved fast. At the door, two huge and very overweight guys, one white one black, in ill-fitting suits were checking ID's. The white one looked bored checking Wally's "Wally Swift" ID. He handed it back without saying anything. The black one looked at Dick's ID.

"Anal Retentive?" he grumbled to snickers from six of the seven.

"Alan!" Dick corrected him. "Alan Ray-tahn-teef!"

"Oh, yeah," said the security guy looking at it again. "Alan."

"It's, um, french," explained Dick to nothing more than a roll of the eyes by the security guy.

But that was the only trouble they had. The others got through with no problem including "Garth Flounder". A few more moments and they were all in and settling into a large leather semicircular booth. Roy immediately pointed out how well his fake ID's had worked and then made a point of telling the staff that this was a bachelor party for for Wally.

This seemed to Wally to be an almost magical phrase. He'd been in restaurants when the staff was told it was some kid's birthday resulting in a cake and singing. The magical words "bachelor party" seemed to bring not cake but alcohol and cause every girl in the place to stop by their table at some point to look at him. Wally got up and danced with a few of them, surprising them with his quick feet, nothing for a super speedster, of course. And almost all of them kissed him, just pecks on the cheek, but it was something that had never happened to him before. One pinched him, where girls tend to pinch boys. He was also pretty sure that another boy had pinched him as he made his way through the crowd with music blaring. It seemed that boys tended to pinch boys there as well.

Let's see what's going off the market! That seemed to be the sentiment as groups of girls stopped by their table. Everyone seemed to be astounded that a boy like the orange haired one would be marrying so young. Are you sure you don't . . have to? Wally assured them all that it was love and not necessity. They all asked about her and Wally would say something simple and vague like "She's really pretty and very smart." But no matter what he said, he got the vague feeling that they all felt he was making a mistake.

It didn't matter. The guys were having a good time. They had a lot of alcohol, too. Wally had a couple beers and one each of the same mixed drinks that Roy was having. Roy seemed kind of disappointed that they didn't affect Wally more. He would've loved to have seen the teen speedster staggering and slurring his words. But, true to his super speed metabolism, he was pretty drunk at 9:12 but by 9:14 he was sober again.

There was a whole range of different reactions among the seven of them. Cy had no trouble drinking as much as anyone else. Temporarily blond Gar started acting a little off kilter half way through his second beer. Party animal Roy still seemed on top of his game after 5 mixed drinks. Ty almost got into two different fights and sat beside Roy cursing out various people in club he'd felt had disrespected him after matching Roy drink for drink. Dick drank a little less than most of them and had almost no reaction to it. Garth first tried to refuse any mixed drinks or even beers. He asked for a specific bottle of wine, a Chateau Lafitte Rothschild 1949 but the waitress just looked at him as if saying "Are you freaking kidding me?!" Roy and the others pushed him to go along and be part of the group. Garth refused some more but finally relented, muttering misgivings about alcohol using up the water in a gentleman's system and other . . side effects.

Wally turned to Roy. "Is it okay for Garth to drink?"

"Oh sure," said Roy before spying a spectacularly hot girl and getting up to pursue her across the club. Wally caught a glimpse between dancers of Roy, on the other side of the club, kissing just a minute later. Hmmph! Roy.

Wally turned his attention back to the table. As was the case most of the night, he had Garth to one side of him and Dick to the other, neither one very comfortable with the party atmosphere. Dick seemed to be annoyed at how Ty kept drinking even though it had clearly exacerbated his bad temper. And Gar was slurring his words to Cy about some girl looking at them. Wally saw Dick's deep frown.

"Is it that bad?"

"No. I-I suppose it's not that bad. I just don't like to see my team like this."

Wally tried to console him that things were covered. They had extra manpower there. "Hot Spot", he whispered, pointing across the table at Ty, as well as Speedy and Aqualad Wally noted, with massive Justice League power coming in the next morning. And word had been spread through the grapevine to every crook in Jump. Everything was going to be fine. Nothing would happen. And it was just this night, anyway. But Dick was pretty clearly resolved to be upset. So, with a sigh, Wally turned to Garth on his right. The long haired atlantean seemed to be in better spirits. He smiled at Wally. But Wally was shocked to see a slightly glassy eyed look on the face of his highminded friend.

"No more shpeedster to dream about after -hic- tomorrow -hic-"

"We can still be friends, can't we, Garth?" asked Wally putting an arm over Garth's shoulder.

Garth nodded and slowly a smile came over his face.

"I was -hic- I was mad at you, Wallash a-about your not telling me the . . toof . . but now I see that you an' Jinz dinnit -hic- dinnit wanna hurt me. "

Wally nodded. "That's what it was, Garth. I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to mislead you to gain anything. You were just so insistent about your views, we . . we thought we'd be hurting you to say anything else. I'm sorry."

Garth patted Wally's head, an unusual gesture for the Atlantean.

"You really would've li-hic-liked Le -hic- Corsaire, Wall-hic-Wally. Wunnerful ath-th-thletic boys like -hic- you. You should be one of 'em, Wally. You'd be -hic- you'd be . . great."

"Um, thanks, Garth. That's very kind of you."

Garth said nothing but only slid the arm he already had around Wally's shoulders down to his waist and pulled the speedster tight to his side. Wally let him. He needed to keep an eye on him. He was worried about Garth. He'd never seen him like this. He was always sophisticated, articulate Garth. This was a shock. What had Garth said about a gentleman's system using up water to process alcohol? Maybe that was it. Wally pushed a glass of water in front of Garth. "Here Garth. Drink up." Garth let his head rest, for a moment, affectionately on Wally's shoulder then gulped down the water.

A minute later, Dick tapped on Wally's arm. "Um, weren't we going to leave this place by ten according to Roy's plan?"

Wally nodded.

Dick showed him his watch. It was 10:02.

They agreed that Wally should go try and find Roy and that Dick would get the others ready to go back to the lime green minivan. Wally moved quickly through the club but at a speed that most people could manage. He finally saw the spectacularly hot girl, fixing her hair, skirt, bra strap and blouse in a mirror as the music blared around her, but there was no Roy. It took Wally another minute to find Roy deep in close talking conversation with some artist type who Roy later told him had decorated that whole club.

"Ten o'clock. Gotta go, Harper."

Over his shoulder, Wally saw the artist type raise his fist beside his head with thumb and little finger out. Call me. And he thought he detected the slightest nod from Roy.

The second club was hard to find. First there was a wrong turn, and even when they arrived outside it, Roy, the party planner, expressed uncertainty that it was the right place. There were no signs. There was just a black door on the street with a guy in front of it holding a clipboard. They all trooped out of the lime green minivan again and Gar turned back from cat to human, pulled on his clothes and his cloaking ring and they marched up to the entrance. There was something different about this club right away, but Wally couldn't quite put his finger on it. The guy outside checking ID's was certainly different, not a huge fat guy but a pretty boy blond guy whose hair must've taken an hour to set up in the sweeping, cantilevered way he had it. And, he stared right at both Gar and Wally in a way that could not be misunderstood. It was worse than the girls in the last club kissing him, thought Wally. Inside, the second club was smaller, nicer looking but darker too. The group took a booth just off the dance floor but you could barely see the dancers.

Immediately, the alcohol got started again. Wally didn't drink much and Dick just had a single beer but the others were throwing them back fast and furious all over again. Gar had to leave for the bathroom and the others suspected that he threw up but he steadfastly denied it. Ty's temper was worse than ever and only Roy intervening saved a fight with a guy who'd danced over and stepped on Ty's foot.

Garth, sitting to Wally's right, seemed composed but out of the blue asked Wally if there was something he'd always wanted to do but hadn't had the opportunity. Wally tried to come up with something.

"Hmm. Always wanted to do but haven't had the chance . . ? Hmm. I don't know . . maybe-"

Before Wally could finish, Garth surprised him by pulling him tight to his chest and then being faster for having induced shock in the orange haired speedster, putting his mouth over Wally's and giving him a deep french kiss. Wally tried to squirm free.

Mmmmf! Mmmmf! Mmmmf!

But Garth was strong enough to swim to the bottom of the ocean and withstand the pressure. He held the speedster tight. To Wally's mortification, it seemed like half the club had stopped to watch the kiss. It came in a brief gap between songs and someone at an adjacent table had started tapping his glass with a fork the way they do at wedding receptions to urge on kissing between the groom and bride. The whole place seemed to be cheering on him being kissed by . . Garth!?

Finally, after a minute, Garth released him. Wally gasped for air as the club burst into applause. Wally turned nearly as red as the bottom half of a Kid Flash suit. Garth only gave a faint smile and whispered in Wally's ear. "My sincere apologies, Wallace, but I've wanted to do that since we first met. I couldn't do even that tomorrow."

Wally shrugged. "It's . . okay Garth. But don't do that again."

Garth nodded okay.

Wally got up to use the bathroom. He expected to get jeering remarks from other guys in the club. But a guy he passed on the way into the bathroom said something about him and Garth being a great couple. Then, as he unzipped in front of a urinal, a guy washing his hands said, "That cute long haired guy's a great kisser, huh?"

And suddenly Wally realized. He hadn't seen any women. The music selection. Cheering on Garth kissing him. It was a gay club!

"I said that really cute long haired guy's a great kisser, isn't he?"

"Um . . yeah."

Wally made his way carefully back to their booth. He still got his butt pinched twice navigating his way through the crowd and when he got back to the booth he could see from Dick's stiff body language that Dick had also figured out that it was a gay club.

"Wally!" Dick whispered furiously as Wally settled back in between him and Garth. "This club . . . it's . . . !"

"I know!" Wally hissed back.

Cy and Gar had also figured it out, to judge by their expressions. Garth was gulping down some more water to get back to feeling normal. Roy and Ty didn't look particularly bothered by the fact that they were in a gay club. But the clear consensus was that they had to go. If it hadn't already been, it was settled when two blond boys going past, stopped at the table and pronounced it the "betht looking table in the club!". They stared particularly at little Dick Grayson.

The waiter for that particular table got a 175 percent tip thanks to Dick, Cy and Gar throwing twenties on the table so that they could leave immediately without having to wait for a check.

"Sorry guys," said Roy, back in the lime green minivan. "I told you I wasn't sure about that one. This next place is guaranteed pleasure."

"Where to?" asked Cy from behind the wheel.

"Exposure, the premier Jump City Gentleman's club," said Roy eliciting cheers and whoops from all but Garth who simply rolled his eyes.

"So tawdry," he muttered.


	6. Titan boys in Exposure

"Exposure - Jump City's Premier Gentleman's & Ladies Club" read the huge neon sign out front. A guy getting out of a jaguar convertible sneered at the lime green minivan, secretly T-Car1, as Cy eased it into the parking lot. The guys piled out, little feline Gar became full sized human Gar and he quickly pulled on his clothes.

At the entrance to the place, Speedy's fake ID's worked again, but the huge security guys by the door seemed more suspicious of them than the they'd been at the last two clubs. One handed Dick's fake ID to an even fatter guy behind him who the Titan boys heard referred to, appropriately enough, as "The Fat Man". He was apparently the owner.

"Hey boss, what do you think about this?"

The huge weeble shaped man took Dick's ID in his pudgy fingers. "Anal retentive?"

The others all laughed, interrupting Garth apologizing to Wally for the seventh time for kissing him in the gay club.

"Alan!" Dick corrected. "Alan Ray-tawn-teef. It's . . . french!"

"Oh. French." The Fat Man rolled his eyes as if that would explain pretty much anything and gave the ID back to Dick.

No one else's ID was challenged but it seemed to Wally that The Fat Man gave them all a very close scrutiny, staring at them as they went past then following them into the club before turning away to deal with some issue at the bar.

Inside, the Titan boys were hit by a wall of sound, Guns N Roses, at first, then also the hoots and shouts of the men at the tables and bar. Wally was surprised at how big the place was inside, three rings of tables large and small in semicircular rings around a stage with a bar off to one side. The place was almost full when the incognito Titan boys entered. Wally glanced around. There were some tables that could accomodate their group but they were all taken. The seven Titan boys walked up one aisle to a spot that wouldn't block anyone's view while they tried to figure what to do. They'd told some short guy near the entrance that they had a party of seven and he said he'd do what he could but they'd have to wait till a table opened up.

Wally looked to Roy and Dick, the two tacticians. What do we do? They both shrugged. Then, over his shoulder, Wally couldn't help but overhear the conversation at the large table behind them. None of the Titan boys could help overhearing it. Wally saw Garth get a distressed look on his face at the stupid bravado of the seven idiots seated there. Abject stupidity out for a night on the town. F-- this. F-- that. I'd F-- her. Bambi's more my type, look at the rack on her. But, hehe, I wouldn't kick Fawn out of bed. Still, it's Bambi for me! F-- you. She wouldn't look at a fat slob like you. F-- you. F-- you. Hey let's buy some more lap dances! Ah, they got better bitches at that Scores place in New York. F-- you! No, F-- you.

And on and on it went though a glance at the idiots was enough to convince anyone that any woman who looked like the club's dancers would never have anything to do with any of them.

Finally, one of them said to their apparent leader. "When we goin' to her place, Tony?"

"Soon as she calls."

"I'll be listenin'."

Slap.

"It's on vibrate, dipshit," he said pointing to a phone on the table next to some empty shot glasses. "You'll probably see it before you hear it."

Wally caught Roy's eye. Roy was the only one standing diredtly against their table. Wally sidled up next to Roy. "Tell me when my finger's right next to that phone," he said into Roy's ear. Slowly, very slowly, so as to not attract any attention, he extended one arm, not looking that way, behind Roy beside him and along the table, past an empty beer glass toward the phone in question.

"Now," said Roy and he glanced back over his other shoulder to see Wally's index finger vibrating, making a sound just like a phone set on vibrate.

Zmmmmmmt! Zmmmmmmt! Zmmmmmmt!

Roy smirked. Wally's other fingers looked perfectly normal. His index finger was a blur.

"That's her!" shouted one of the group of morons and their leader picked up his phone as they all piled out of the booth past the low table and out into the aisle. Busboys immediately appeared and cleaned the table grumbling about the insufficient tip. The Titan boys slid in just as a new group of dancers appeared on the stage to whistles and shouts. As at the two clubs before that, Dick and Garth took the spots on either side of Wally, Gar sat next to Cy and Roy next to Ty. After they ordered drinks, Dick got up to use the bathroom. At least, that's what he said. All the Titan boys knew better. Dick was so predictable. He was doing a recon of the place, it was an obsessive compulsive thing with Dick. He took a circuitous route to the rest rooms and Wally guessed he probably assessed the threat of crime from every person in the place as he did so. Roy slid over next to Wally as Garth was talking to Cy on his other side.

Roy grinned conspiratorially and leaned toward his fellow redhead. "So . . . . you can make just one finger vibrate?" he half shouted just loudly enough to be heard over the music.

Wally nodded. "Sure. Whatever parts I want."

Roy was leaning forward now. "Wait. So, it's true? You can make one part of you vibrate, and it can be . . whichever part of you that you want?

Wally nodded.

Roy's face could barely contain his smirk. "Then . . . ," he looked down at the crotch of Wally's pants. " . . . you could even make . . . " Roy nodded downward. " . . . that . . vibrate?!"

Wally suppressed his smile, mostly, as he gave a faint nod. Roy convulsed in laughter and clapped his hands together.

"Ahahahahaha! Awesome! Awesome! Ahahahahaha! That's-that's . . world changing, Wally! That's guaranteed satisfaction! Wally, my man! Do you know what you are?"

"Christ, Roy. I know what the hell I am and what I can do!"

"Does . . Jinx know?" Roy snickered beneath suggestively wiggled eyebrows.

"Of course she does. What do you think we do together?"

Roy burst into extended laughter before finally composing himself. "Well, shit, Wally, I don't know. In the car, you were talking with Dick about how much you like cuddling with her. God, Wally. Shit like that could get all of us in trouble. If they all expected us to just hold them in bed . . . !" Roy finished with a shudder. "Chicks or guys," he added before a second shudder.

"I hold her in my arms afterward you dope. I like it."

Roy quickly fell back into enthusiastic chuckles. "Yeah, but first you . . Zzzzzt! Zzzzzt! Zzzzzt! Ahahahahahaha! God! No wonder she's still with you even though you're such a brainiac nerd. I mean, okay. The face and the body. The buns, of course. The suit only helps, but-"

"Roy! She reads books just as much as me."

"Hey! Does she have some special sex trick, too?"

"If you think I'm gonna tell you, you're fricking nuts, archer."

"Oh my god! She does! Doesn't she? What's that old saying, unlucky in cards lucky in love or something like that? So she dispenses all bad luck otherwise but , , between the sheets, hahaha!"

"Roy! Shut the fuck up!"

"Well . . jeez . . you don't need to get all offended."

"I'm not offended but you can't seriously expect me to tell you anything about her? I didn't tell you about me!"

Roy shrugged his shoulders, fair enough, then leaned forward over the table paying close attention to the nearly naked dancers gyrating on the stage. Wally sighed and then turned away. A blast of cold air hit him from the air conditioning system. He shuddered and somehow that and Roy's mention of cuddling made him think of the time the past winter when the Tower's heating system had gone out. Something about a plasma based electro magnetic pulse from one of Immortus's lackeys having overloaded circuitry. Whatever the cause, the place was icy. Out in the middle of the bay with winds whipping around, it was not an easy place to heat. Cyborg had rigged up some geothermal energy draw and solar and tidal action energy generation but the circuits running it all had been damaged. Kid Flash got back to his room after trying to help Cy with things. It would be some hours more he reported to Jinx from the doorway.

"Wally! I'm cold," declared Jinx from across the room as Kid Flash entered and walked toward her.

"Don't say that about yourself, Jinx. Don't. Reserved? Sure. Aloof? Perhaps. Maybe distant, but not cold. Don't say that about yourself, Jinx."

She'd given him that look that threatened a thousand volt hex. "Speedster. Get. Over. Here."

Kid Flash was behind her in a microsecond, his arms wrapped affectionately about her, his cheek pressed to her so that he just could whisper in her ear. First his words made her smile. He couldn't see it but he knew it was there. After more sweet sincere words she let out a soft sigh of pleasure. She always liked him holding her. Her body temperature was naturally 2 degrees below normal. His was 2 degrees above. Each felt like a pleasant, needed contrast to the other. He squeezed tighter. She squeezed his arms back . He turned her head far enough to kiss her. Cyborg didn't get the circuits working again till the next morning but there was no shortage of heat in that room of the Tower.

Wally looked up, suddenly reconnecting with the whole room and the loud music and the two nearly naked girls, one black and one white dancing on the stage 25 feet away. Roy and Ty hooted at the black girl's moves. "Woohoo! She is sweet! Shake that ass!"

Wally coudn't get into that same frame of mind right away. He couldn't adopt that coldly impersonal perspective that strip clubs encouraged, where a guy doesn't see a real person, just a fantastic body spinning and grinding away there for him. Have some alcohol. Stare. Music. Dancing. Stare. Just look at that body. She's there for you. It's okay. Everyone else is hooting. Just a body, there for you. Just stare.

Everyone in grade school had liked Wally West. Wally was smart and fun but lots of other boys were smart and fun. Reed thin Wally West was a really good baseball player and swimmer too. But there were lots of boys who could say that, too. The girls would smile at his orange hair and his blue eyes. Of course, they wouldn't show it because Wally West was hopelessly poor in a school district where if your family was merely rich you were behind the curve. The thing was, Wally West couldn't hurt anyone. He just wouldn't. And everyone somehow knew. Other kids lashed out callously from a secure place. Wally West couldn't lash out. He wanted to connect. He desperately wanted a strong connection. It was as strong as his young teen boy's sex drive. And then he became Kid Flash and was even more completely separated from everyone. And then he met Jinx and they connected in every way. This encouragement of lust with no connection meant looking at girls in a way that was unusual for Wally. But the music kept playing, Roy bought a round of drinks for everyone then Cy bought another. All the other guys were hooting. And the hot girls kept dancing . . .

Dick Grayson stared at the girls, too. They were obviously in great shape. The black one, especially, seemed like she might be a good fighter. There weren't many good fighters in the place. Other than the incognito Titans, he calculated that 114 of the 137 customers were drunk to the point of impairing their ability to fight. 20 others were no threat as a result of being either old, obese or small and weak. That left the black guy at the bar sipping his drink slowly and the two guys at the table down front to the right. Of those, only the black guy was lefthanded which would require special-

Dick Grayson took a deep breath. He took another. And then a third.

"Stop it!" He shouted in his own mind. Stop it! Stop . . . strategizing!! He closed his eyes and took another breath. Stop!!

He tried to direct his own thoughts. But it was hard. It was hard for him to break such deeply established patterns of behavior and relax. It was also hard because of how he'd been raised. A strip club was the last place the Graysons had prepared their darling boy to be. Raising their amazing son in the circus with all sorts of shady characters around, the Graysons had intentionally erred on the side of protecting Dick. At 11 years old, he'd never seen anything other than a G rated movie. He'd never seen a picture of a naked girl, not even statues and he'd never came close to kissing one. His parents didn't even let people swear around him. They and the lion tamer and his wife and the single mother who cared for the elephants had worked together to provide a very sheltered life for their kids. And then Dick's parents had been killed and he was taken in by Batman. Where the Graysons had tried to keep smut away from their boy, Batman positively attacked it. Batman loathed prostitution and strip clubs and spoke of them in the harshest terms. It was difficult to see any lust as natural and acceptable after spending 3 years as Batman's protege trying to clean up the despicable sex industry of Gotham City. It all dovetailed neatly with Dick's extreme emotional repression. All feeling, all passion in him went into the vengeful crime fighting of Robin the boy wonder. He wished he could be like Gar or Cy or Wally, fighting crime as pretty much their normal selves. Maybe if he had a power. Maybe then. But it wasn't the way it was. He had to be so perfect at all times. Still . .

Sigh.

But, Wally was right, he reminded hiimself with a quick glance around the table. Speedy. Hot Spot. Kid Flash. Aqualad. Beast Boy and Cyborg. They had massive power just at this table, the seven of them. Massive power. And there was more power back at Titans Tower, in all the girls. And there was even greater power still on the way in the form of the Justice League. It . . it would be okay this-this once to let his guard down. Just this once. It would be okay. And the music kept playing and Roy and Cy bought rounds of drinks. And all the other guys but Garth encouraged him to hoot and whistle as well. And the hot girls kept dancing, almost naked just down there in front of them . . .

And down at one end of the semicircular leather booth, Gar and Cy wore their disguises. They had cloaking rings on, too. But the greater disguise in the strip club was the attitudes they affected. Across the table from them, Roy and Ty hooted and shouted at the dancers and made jokes about Dick and Garth and even Wally. Gar didn't want to seem like a wuss to Roy and Ty. He hooted and shouted and made comments to the rest of the table. Cy could hardly let the skinny pretty boy, blond now but usually green as a weed, appropriate considering how quickly he'd shot up from five four to six one, seem more of a man than him. He shouted and whistled at a volume that put pretty boy Gar to shame. And so Gar shouted some more and made some lascivious comments and more firmly affixed his disguise in turn. And this pushed Cy further, who then pushed Gar further, etc . . And the music kept playing and Roy and Cy bought rounds of drinks and the hot girls kept dancing, first down there and then a lap dance for each one of them . . .

On the other side of Wally, Garth couldn't look at the girl now dancing in front of their table the way Roy and Ty could, either. He was a prince, a sophisticated atlantean raised on only the highest culture, atlantean of course and the best symphonies, ballets, operas and plays from the surface. He wished he could see her the way the others did, at least the way Roy did, at least half way to where the others were.

He had hoped it would be a phase, the way he was. Atlanteans considered themselves to be much more sophisticated than surface dwellers. Atlanteans accepted, no, almost expected that a handsome boy would experiment. He was extremely desirable for . . that sort of young man. It was no failure to give in once or even twice. It was the highminded atlantean perspective. Nothing was thought of a dalliance or two with other handsome boys. When the royal court first murmured about Garth Poseidon and the son of the Duke of the Indian Ocean, there were just faint smiles. The prince was an uncommonly handsome boy. Not only all the maidens at the court were chasing after him. But, then, in some circles there were stories of the prince and the son of the Count of the Mediterranean. In other places there were rumors of the prince and the young Marquis of the Bay of Bengal. The royal queen was patient. It was just a phase. Garth was taking longer to get through it than some of the other handsome boys. But there were so many beautiful maidens at the court. And Garth was such an impressive young man, so strong, so able. He could control water! Even his father could not do that! He could control water! This phase would pass and Garth would produce heirs and rule magnificently some day. Oh, perhaps Garth was a bit of a fop. But the life of a prince did tend to make a boy a bit passive. Garth might swim through the sand shoals and come back to the palace to clean up. He would step forward from the entrance to the royal bath. On each side a servant would removes his gloves. Another disinterested step forward and servants would pull the prince's unitard down to his waist. Another step forward with right leg raised and more servants would pull the prince's unitard off one leg. Then the same with the other. Lastly a servant would reach between the prince's legs and carefully remove his dance belt. All the while, the prince would barely notice them, perhaps yawning and playing a Beethoven sonata or a Mozart concerto in his head. Then, another batch of servants would scrub and lather the royal person. The prince never cleaned his own skin. And, when the prince used the royal commode, a servant stepped forward, on cue, to wipe the royal ass.

Aquaman was happy that his son was adopting the life of a hero. Just the thing, he thought, to shake the little snob out of his languor. And, to his pleasant surprise, Garth loved it. His days finally had meaning. Being a prince under his father had meant no responsibility at all. Fabulously comfortable but aimless days followed one after another. As a hero, he saved lives. Oh, they were surface dweller lives, but Garth found that so many of the stereotypes everyone at the royal court had about surface dwellers were wrong. And who were those people at the court to sneer at surface dwellers? Some of them were like that snake Deverell, always snickering behind his back. Ho ho, it seems that the oh so handsome prince is still stuck in his . . haha . . phase of only being interested in other oh so handsome boys. Oh ho ho, what if there will be no heir? The nerve of that philistine! What body of water was his protectorate, anyway? Long Island Sound?! Ha! Practically irrelvant. The Duke of The Atlantic should assert his rights and have Deverell removed from the court!

But as a hero on the surface he didn't have to deal with schemers like Deverell and some of the others at the court. And he found something else. Camraderie. He was always apart in Atlantis. Prince Garth. Above every Atlantean but his father in rank. And that rank was constantly being emphasized. Atlanteans always prefaced their speaking to him with apologies. He wondered if he hadn't spent a year of his life just listening to pointless apologies. "Beg your pardon, your highness, but . . " "Please excuse the intrusion oh prince, but . . " "A thousand pardons my young liege, but may I so humbly suggest . . . " "It may not be the place of a lowly commoner like me to ask this, my prince, but . . ." Aaarrrggghhh!! Just get on with it!

But as a Teen Titan, he was just one of the team. In fact, both Bee and Robin outranked him and all of them were lower ranked, sort of, than the Justice League members. It was refreshing. He could have give and take with his teammates and other heroes. Even Roy's stupid pranks with crazy glue and that damn flatulence inducing powder he kept sprinkling in the kelp became less irritating if seen as part of interactions with teammates.

But some things didn't change on the surface. It was still the handsome young men who caught his eye. He visited the Justice League satellite, the Watchtower, with Aquaman and met Flash and Kid Flash. This did not help. He stared at the young speedster with the distinctive physique in the skin tight suit. And he also met, for the first time, Green Arrow's protege, Speedy. But, where Kid Flash seemed, thankfully, oblivious to what he was thinking about him, Speedy's face always seemed to be a smirk that he knew. Then they both became members of Titans East. And there was the smirk every day. I know. Ha! I know. Every day. And he was so annoying. Despite a capacity for intelligence, he was crude. So annoying. He could not be that way except intentionally. But why would he always seek to antagonize, wondered the prince. Then, they kissed. A night alone in the Tower. A dangerous mission executed well, leaving a feeling of celebration. Thanks for saving me. No! You saved me. They couldn't decide. But they both realized they cared. They looked in each other's eyes. They kissed and it started.

Garth thought it would be what he saw between Wallace and Jinx. He thought it would always be that. And sometimes it was. Roy could be so much better some fo the time. He could love that Roy. They certainly had passion enough for a real love. But after a while Garth would hear rumors of Roy having affairs. Men. Women. Models. Waiters. Waitresses. All comers. Meanwhile, the word of their romance had just spread across the hero world. It was all over the Watchtower. Bumble Bee sat down with Mas and Menos to explain to them. And word, of course, reached the Titans in Jump City. Just as Garth was having doubts about it due to Roy's infidelity, he was being pushed to play a role as standard bearer for a kind of love. And it pained Garth that some heroes could not accept it. Oh, no one said anything directly to him. But Robin and Beast Boy and Cyborg were so stiff around him, never relaxing, always keeping an eye on him. At least Wallace and Jinx didn't care. Their room became his favorite place on all the surface even more than Titans East's tower. He could talk and laugh freely with them and both of them were intelligent and respected sophistication. Wallace knew roughly how he thought of him and didn't care. Why couldn't Richard and Garfield and Victor be like that? Just because they were desired didn't mean he would jump them or something! Did they attack every girl they found attractive? Soooooo silly. But Wallace was past that and he was intelligent and funny and great company. And, Jinx was so much fun. There was a straightfoward attitude about her that was so much easier to deal with than all the soft, entrapping females at the court in Atlantis. Garth could not admit it to her or Wallace but, sometimes, looking at her, he could almost feel something, almost feel what he imagined a gentleman felt for a young woman like her. But then Wallace with his spectacular rear end would come into view and Garth would have a difficult time focusing on Jinx.

Aqualad stared at the girls gyrating on the stage. The music and alcohol did nothing to change his sentiments. He enjoyed his occasional glances to his left at Wallace and Richard, his light blue eyes so striking, more than the show in front of him.

"This is tawdry Wallace," Garth finally sighed as the blond girl doing lap dances left their table.

"Come on, Garth. It's not high minded but is it that bad?"

"Well, I can tell you we don't have entertainment like this at the royal court in Atlantis. That girl who just shook her behind so close to your face, what sort of desperate situation must she be in to remove nearly all her clothes and dance in front of strange men like this. Don't you feel sorry for her, Wallace?"

"Garth! Isn't it possible that she likes doing this? Isn't it possible that she's proud of her body and gets some enjoyment out of this? Even you, Garth, can't you see how great she looks?"

"Well, she does look good, for a girl, I mean. As you know, I . . I prefer a different relationship of waist to hip width, though," he said, gently pressing one hand to Wally's hip.

"And, I seem to remember a certain Atlantean being anything but shy in the locker room with his unitard off," whispered Wally just loud enough for Garth to hear.

"That was with you guys, Wallace. Not in front of strangers."

The next dancer, a black girl, shimmied over to Wally in time with the music and then shook her beautiful body within an inch of his face to the music and the accompanying hoots of the other Titans. Finally, she bounced away.

"That was unfortunate, Wallace. I hope you can see that she wasn't just proud of her body. She was crassly displaying it to you without any dignity at all."

"GarthGarthGarth," Wally laughed while putting an arm around the atlantean's shoulder. "You need to just relax and let things go a bit. Besides. With a rear like that, she should be dancing in a club like this."

The other Titans within earshot, Roy and Ty, laughed and even Dick grinned at this.

"You shouldn't say things like that, Wallace," said Garth. "We atlanteans have in common with Jinx's hindus a belief in karma. You guys bring bad karma on yourselves acting like that."

"Oh, please, Garth. Re-lax," said Dick and the rest of the table burst into laughter. Dick, telling somebody else to relax!? It was a good minute before anyone else could speak. Roy slapped the table several times over, his shoulders shuddering with his gasps for breath. Gar had to wipe tears from his eyes he'd laughed so hard. Garth shook his head at just another indignity. "What else was there in an establishment like this?" he wondered.

And for a while his warning seemed ridiculous. Everything was fine and the guys enjoyed some more lap dances and leaving one dollar bills as tips in the dancers' miniscule costumes. They barely noticed the four guys sitting down at the small table ahead of them and to one side. They were having fun. They completely shrugged off the first remark those guys made, making fun of Dick's height as he returned from the bathroom. And the stuff about Gar being a wussy pretty boy had been dumb. So what? But the stuff they said to Ty was borderline racist. The fries that one threw over his shoulder at the Titans boys' table had been easy to overlook. They were heroes. They knew they were more powerful than those idiots. They didn't feel the least insecurity about it. Then they started shouting remarks about how this or that dancer was so hot only the fags over at that table, they would point to the Titans, aren't getting hard right now. Ty shouted something back. The four idiots shouted something. Cy stood up. There was more shouting. As it was happening, Garth leaned over toward Wally. "Is that true, Wallace? You guys are all getting . . excited?"

"Just a little. Just barely," Wally replied.

And just as he did, the fight broke out. Wally and Garth didn't see it start but the other Titans swore that the four idiots started it, one of them taking a swing at Ty and another swinging at Gar. But Cy stepped forward, bigger and stronger than anyone there. One of the idiots broke a cheap chair over Cy's back and even though Cy barely flinched, this was too much. Roy and Ty as well as Gar and Dick rushed forward and more furniture was broken as they throttled the four idiots.

The music stopped and all the other customers craned their necks away from the nearly naked brunette doing a pole dance and looked toward the commotion. Just a few seconds later, the hugely fat owner, six two and 350 if he was an ounce, waddled up to them. To the exasperation of the Titans, the four idiots immediately started lying and saying that the Titans boys had started it. They pointed to their table and its chairs and the empty ones that had been next to them, all ruined, cheap furniture that splintered when the Titans boys had thrown the idiots. Dick argued about how ridiculous this was and pointed out that they'd hit Cy with a chair before anyone else had been hit. The Fat Man said he doubted that because Cy didn't look like he'd been touched. Not a scratch on him. The Titans boys had no easy argument for this one. They couldn't exactly retort that this was because their pal was a super powered cyborg whose body was half machine. And The Fat Man kept staring at Dick.

"Yer that 'Anal Retentive' one with the funny ID, aintcha?"

"Alan," Dick corrected though no one was laughing this time. "Alan Ray-tawn-teef."

A scrawny, oily lackey now appeared at the Fat Man's side. "What should we do, boss?"

"Get the damn music back on and get everyone else focused on the girls. I'll sort this out here," he bellowed.

The lackey scurried away and in a moment Def Leppard blared from the speakers again.

"Let me see your ID," the Fat Man demanded of Dick.

"Wh-why? You already did, at the door."

"Now, pipsqueak or I call the cops."

Dick reluctantly got the fake ID from his wallet and handed it to him.

"Hmmph. Just what I thought," said the Fat Man before turning to Cy. "Let me see your ID, tough guy," and then to the other Titan boys, "Let me see all your ID's."

They all reached into their wallets and turned over their fake ID's.

"They ain't 21, aint' they!" groaned one of the four idiots rubbing the shoulder that had smashed into a table when he landed on it after Roy threw him.

The two huge security guys from outside the club now waddled up to the owner.

"Any trouble here, boss?" they said trying to look menacing to the mostly slender boys who didn't seem to buy the act at all.

"May-be," the Fat Man drawled. "Look at this mark, here," he said pointing a pudgy finger at one fake ID. "And the way that picture is against that background," he said gesturing to another. "These boys are all in here with fake ID's," he said and handed all seven fake ID's to the greasy little lackey who hurried away with them.

The other Titan boys were looking for Dick to respond, to offer up some kind of strategy but he was paralyzed by a sudden resumption of feelings of guilt at both using fake ID's and being in a strip club.

"I don't know who started this," said the Fat Man to the Titans boys. "But I'll call the cops on the whole bunch of you kids! Phony I.D.'s are kind of frowned on with all the homeland security shit goin' around. All yer rich daddies and mommies will like finding out their little trust fund babies now have records, won't they?"

The incognito Titans boys gulped. The Fat Man waved the four idiots off and they disappered toward the other end of the club.

"Bruce will never let me hear the end of it," muttered Dick in Wally's ear.

"Flash'll be so disappointed!" whispered Wally back to him.

The Fat Man surveyed all seven boys with a smile. Wally didn't like he he was particularly looking at both him and Dick. He started waddling slowly around them, glass crushing under his shoes while, in the background, one song ended and another started blaring. New dancers emerged from the back room and employees righted chairs and tables that had been overturned in the fight.

"You boys are gonna have to pay me for everything you broke. And it's all high quality stuff. Nothin' but the best. This is a gentleman's club."

"Ha! It's a den of the lowest common denominator and every table, chair and light in here is the cheapest junk possible," declared Garth.

"Shut up, you! You boys did at least 3,000 dollars damage to my place-"

"That's ludicrous!"

At that moment the greasy little lackey returned to the fat man.

"Scanned 'em in, boss and shot 'em over to the other offices, too."

"I said shut up, dark eyes. What were you doin' in here anyway? You barely glanced at any of my girls."

"I'm a . . gentleman!"

"Uh huh. Sure. I think you were a little more interested in your handsome friends, weren't you?"

Garth sputtered a denial.

"Don't matter. You got some reeeeeeeeal pretty boy friends," he said, continuing to waddle around them all as an employee following, hunched over behind him and vacuumed with a dustbuster after each step.

"You boys didn't seem to be able to handle bein' the audience. Maybe yer better suited to bein' the . . entertainment?"

"What?!" Dick positively screeched.

"You heard me. Yer some right . . pretty boys. If you don't want me goin' to the police right now then go through that door over there and trade a few hours of yourselves for your freedom," he said pointing with one flabby arm. "Take your clothes off and we'll be in to pick four of ya in a minute."

The Titan boys were stunned. They looked to Dick and Roy, the master strategists for the next move.

"Thirty minutes of being a chippendales dancer in black tights and a bow tie. So what? muttered Roy to Dick though the others heard hiim as well. But the Atlantean was adamant.

"Ha! We'll never submit to being active participants in this tawdry commerce!" vowed Garth.

The fat man just smiled at the atlantean. "Fine. Have it your way. See how your families deal with you," he said and flipped open his cell phone then dialed 9-1-1. Before the first ring, Dick Grayson's hand grabbed it and pressed the red, call end button.

"Alright. Alright. Just . . don't call the police."

The fat man smiled and pointed again to the door at one side of the club and seven super powered teen boys shuffled off in that direction.


	7. Girls' night out

Author's note: Thanks for the nice comments. As always, I'm a total praise whore.

Jinx grinned as she danced her way back to the table then sat down and looked around at the other 8 teen heroines. "Gods, what a fun night!" Jinx thought to herself. "We *have* to do this again." It was such a good time to all be out together! Why didn't we ever do this before?

First they'd gotten ready, hottest outfits for everyone and cloaking rings for Jinx, Argent, Starfire and Raven. Starfire went blond. Raven went brunette, Jinx and Argent went redhead. They'd left the Tower in T-Car2, Cyborg's second, upgraded T-Car. Argent had pressed a button on the key chain and the sleek platinum exterior folded, turned, twisted and transformed into a white limousine with big "VIC'S LIMO SERVICE" signs on both sides. All nine of them, Jinx. Argent, Raven, Starfire, Bat Girl, Mary Marvel, Wonder Girl, Bumblebee and Arrowette piled into the "limo".

Girls' night out! Woohoo!!

Oh, there were a couple pairings that didn't quite work, Jinx and Bee, for one, Wonder Girl and Mary Marvel for another, but they just didn't sit next to each other and those few exceptions were gaps easily papered over by the laughs of the group. All nine wore the same slightly surprised smiles. It was just so much fun to be all out together. Why hadn't they done this before?

They made a huge splash at that first club, nine beautiful young women in a partying mood suddenly showing up. And not a single attached guy! Not one! Nine possibilities for an enterprising lad! They spent some time with a few different guys on the dance floor and they flirted with some others at the bar, but mostly it was the nine of them together. Average guys didn't do much to impress girls used to the bodies and intensity of Robin, Kid Flash, Cyborg, Aqualad, Captain Marvel Jr. etc. One after one the would be suitors were shot down. But it didn't dampen the girls' night. Not in the least. Everyone laughed and socialized at full speed. They all told their best, funniest stories. Bat Girl had some great ones about what a ridiculous obsessive Batman is. And Jinx and Bee told about some of the crazier things at the Academy. Great fun.

But even after witnessing every other guy being shot down, a few guys still tried to insinuate themselves among them.

"Hey! I heard you girls laughing. What's so funny?" asked one swarthy attempted interloper with an open collared shirt and pinky rings.

"Oh, it's kind of private," said Wonder Girl, at the edge of the table. They weren't about to repeat Bat Girl's story about Batman to Guido junior.

"Aw, come on, baby. I can keep a secret."

A hush fell and soft chuckles went around the table in reaction to the condescending tone the guy had used with Wonder Girl, of all people.

She stood up, a full six feet tall in her short black dress and looked him in the eye. "It was about a man we know who's many times smarter, stronger and tougher than you," she said. The incognito Titan girls all snickered. This guy had one chance. Walk away. Men could not intimidate amazonians. But, Guido jr. gave a cocky nod and grin.

"I might be a lot tougher than you think, honey."

"Uh, if you were three times as tough as I think you are, it wouldn't matter. Besides which, this is private. Now, be a polite man and not a rude little boy and go away."

The consensus among the group was that the guy tried to reach for her shoulders. Maybe he was going to try and kiss incognito Wonder Girl. No one could be certain because Wonder Girl grabbed both his hands, cracking several bones in the process, and casually half bowled, half threw him across the dance floor from where he slid through the swinging door into the kitchen causing a great crash of pots and pans that could be heard throughout the club. By the time other partiers could look back to where Guido junior's trajectory had begun, Wonder Girl was back in the booth and a short accountant with glasses named Myron was standing where Guido's conqueror would have to have been.

Thus began Myron Lifschitz's reputation as one badass C.P.A.

Like the Titans boys, liquor played a part in the evening for the Titans girls. And the range of effects was even greater. There were no Titan boys who hadn't had at least a little alcohol in their lives. Jinx, Argent and Bee were acquainted with adult beverages. But Wonder Girl, Bat Girl, Arrowette and Mary Marvel had never touched a drop. Jinx raised an eyebrow to Argent upon hearing these admissions. Oh, this should be fun.

At first, the effects simply seemed to be to loosen everyone up. Except Bat Girl. Or maybe that was simply what came out when Bat Girl loosened up, that unhealthy fixation with and anger toward Robin. "Boy wonder, huh? Brilliant detective, huh? How many stakeouts did I share with him and he was clueless, totally clueless! I could just kill him! Four hours once, an inch from him on a ledge. Four hours staring at his back on a ledge. Four hours of wanting him to realize that I . . . . and nothing! The cutest boy, but nothing. Let me tell you about the famous boy wonder . . "

"Unrequited lust congeals into nasty stuff after a while, doesn't it?" Argent mumbled in Jinx's ear as Bat Girl's rambling litany of grievances toward Dick Grayson wound into its fifth minute.

"And he's best friends with Kid Flash now?"

Jinx and Starfire nodded.

"Ha! That's funny because he used to dis Kid Flash like crazy. Cocky, dimwit exhibitionist, he used to call him. Suit like a fairy, he used to say! God, the stuff he used to say about his suit! He hated Kid Flash. Never even met him. I asked him, what, did he run you over in the Justice League satellite or something? He said he'd never met Kid Flash. But he sure hated him just the same. He used to say that he was three times as tough as Kid Flash. I remember that because he was so precise about it. I'm three times as tough as that pretty boy. Three times. I remember trying to get his attention after the one time I went up to the Justice League satellite with Batman. Kid Flash wasn't there, but I told Robin he was and sighed at what a great butt he has and Robin was furious."

"Well, in fairness, Wally didn't like Dick before he met him, either. But they were just going off of images, off of the image the press made for each of them. Believe me. I know how tough it can be to get past that. I still get people who run away at the sight of me or start to call the cops. It's been more than two frickin' years on this side and they still don't quite accept it."

"How do you like being on this side?" asked Bat Girl between sips of champagne.

"Well, it's where I should be, not-not just because of Wally. I never really wanted to hurt people. I wanted respect. I-I kind of wanted revenge on the world for messing with me but I could see it kind of being like The Count of Monte Cristo eventually. You make everything about revenge and eventually all there is is the desire for revenge. There's no you any more."

"Wow . . that's . . "

"Deep," offered Wonder Girl to finish tipsy Bat Girl's thought.

"Yeah," agreed Bat Girl. "And, how about the daily grind of this?"

"Well, it's different. In some ways there's more freedom. In others, less. Always being on call is kind of a bitch, but then we don't feel hunted and that was the way things felt a lot of times with the HIVE 5. But the whole secret identity thing's a lot more trouble than I realized it was."

"Oh, come on," laughed Argent. "How much effort do you make?"

"I make . . an effort," Jinx protested.

"Girlfriend, you go out to clubs with Wally with your pink hair up in horns and your cat eyes showing sometimes."

Jinx shrugged. "Okay. I don't exactly obsess about it. But sometimes I'm in line at a store and some dipshit does something and I would just totally like to hex him but I stay cool. I pay a price. Not like Wally did, Gods! But I pay a price."

"What'd Wally have to do?" asked Mary Marvel.

"All kinds of shit. He lost all his friends. He ended up being considered a joke by the other kids at school because of how he had to act to . He used to let himself be picked on so that no one would realize he was Kid Flash."

"Like . . ?" asked Bat Girl.

"Well, one time, he said he let some big fat jerk drop kick him halfway down the hallway at school. And he said he used to intentionally trip and act like a total klutz in p.e. class so that kids would laugh at him. Oh, and another time, he was finishing 8th grade and these high school juniors about to be seniors came by the junior high on Wally's last day there and dragged him to the back of a truck in the parking lot and paddled his ass like 25 times in front of the whole school."

This elicited giggles from the girls as they imagined Wally being hazed.

"Really?" demanded Mary Marvel. "Why not just sprint away?"

"Duh. He couldn't escape in any way that Wally West couldn't normally escape or it'd show that he's Kid Flash. And so they had him."

"Poor Wally," sympathized Argent.

"Frankly, I'm amazed we ever get away with it," said Arrowette to chuckles before sipping from her flute glass of champagne. "No. Really. The whole secret identity thing. I'm amazed we get away with it. If people were really smart they'd catch us all more often. How do they not?" There were nods of assent around the table.

"How did they not realize who Wally is, anyway?" grinned Bat Girl. "I mean, okay, Wally intentionally trips a few times in gym class. But, then, at the end of the class, don't they go to the showers? Once they see him undressed, how do all the other boys not guess?"

"That body," laughed Arrowette. "He peels his clothes off and they don't think anything of some nerdy kid having that body?!"

"Those buns?!" laughed Wonder Girl.

"Not just that,"smirked Jinx and as she continued another song started to boom forth from the club's sound system.

At some point in the night at that first club they turned up the volume of the music was so loud that the conversation at their table kept getting broken up. At one end of the banquet booth semicircle, Starfire and Raven couldn't hear what Jinx was saying to Argent, Wonder Girl and Arrowette at the other end.

"I do not like this isolation from the others, friend Raven. I wish I could hear what they were talking about."

"Well . . . ," Raven offered hesitantly, "I can read lips."

Starfire clapped her hands together. Just six feet away, Jinx's excited conversation was completely inaudible over the din. As she watched, Jinx grabbed Mary Marvel's Red Bull can. Jinx grinned and said a few things, the other girls beside her got wide eyed looks and laughed, listening intently as Jinx grabbed a water glass and kept talking.

"Oh! What is she saying, friend Raven?" demanded Starfire with a glance at surprisingly blushing Raven.

"Um . . she . . um says Wally um . . starts out with a can of Red Bull all the time."

"Hmmph. Really? I thought friend Kid Flash was very susceptible to the jitters from even the caffeine. Haha, do you remember that time that friend Beast Boy tricked him into drinking the espresso and the Kid Flash was bouncing around like the super ball? Why would he risk drinking the Red Bull? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, uh, I'm sure. Argent says she saw it once, too, his, uh, his can of Red Bull."

Now, Jinx was holding her hands 8 inches apart in front of her and laughing, all the other girls laughing with her. Then she spread her hands further apart, 9 inches . . . 10 inches . . . finally almost a foot apart. She threw her head back in gleeful laughter followed quickly by Argent and the others.

"Oh! What was that, friend Raven?" asked Starfire, noticing that Raven was distinctly blushing. "Please tell me!"

" . . . . . She . . um . . she was talking about how big the one she got was, the, uh . . . . the fish!"

"Is the size of the fish, so important, friend Raven?"

"Um, well, you tell the guy that it doesn't matter, that it's the motion of the ocean, not the size of the, uh, fish that counts, but it's much better with a, uh . . bigger fish, um, when you catch a bigger um fish, I mean."

"Will not Aqualad be upset with her for catching that fish?"

"Um, yeah. He wanted to get to know that one."

Partly out of annoyance at the sound system in the first club and partly because they'd intended to anyway, the Titans girls left the first club and piled into their white stretch limo with the "Vic's Limo Service" signs and drove along to the second club. Jinx and Argent sat squeezed in one corner of the limo seats looking around assessing everyone's status. Bee, at the wheel, was fine. Wonder Girl, despite having had as many glasses of champagne as anyone else, seemed completely unaffected by it. Arrowette seemed a little pleasantly tipsy. Mary Marvel also seemed just a bit tipsy. Raven was starting to slur. And to speak in malaprops. As they were leaving the first club she was explaining to Arrowette how she based her magic off her standard incantation "Azareth Zetrion Minthos! I mean . . . hahaha!" Starfire was hard to judge. She might have been made outrageously perky by alcohol minimizing her inhibitions . . . or that might just be Starfire. Jinx looked at Argent. Argent raised an eyebrow to Jinx and shrugged. It was hard to tell.

Bat Girl was blitzed. She was the one they were most worried about. And, what's more, she wasn't a happy drunk. And her unhappiness had a single, continuing focus.

Robin.

To protect her, they watched over her one by one and slowed down her drinking, taking her glass away from her when she'd half emptied it and talking to her about anything but a certain dark haired, diminutive crime fighter. And some more guys tried to hit on the Titan girls, one trying to attach himself to her. Tall and blond and easygoing and interested in her at a glance, he was everything the Boy Wonder she professed to hate was not. And she rejected him immediately.

"Wimp," she muttered under her breath as he walked away.

But it wasn't an isolated sentiment. To the Titans Girls, all the guys hitting on them at the second club seemed like wimps compared to the boys they knew. And the frequency of the propositions and pickup lines had only increased at the second club. It was to the point of, along with the volume of the music, making the place uncomfortable. Oh, they were still having a good enough time but they decided to move along.

"The next place," announced a standing Argent to the others at the table, "will be different. We won't have to worry about the guys hitting on us all the time," she said with a smile. "The dynamic will be . . a little different."

"Cheesy," Jinx had pronounced it with a laugh as they entered the club. And Argent had glanced at her nervously. She was worried for a moment that Jinx was giving the place a thumbs down. Jump City's premier ladies club? Jinx chuckled at the title. But she wasn't rejecting it. She was laughing and enjoying the cheesiness. The music was loud but not quite as loud as at the two clubs. The crowd was also older. The Titan girls seemed to be winding their way past quite a few middle aged and even older women as they were led to a semi-circular booth off to one side of the room.

And no sooner had they sat down and ordered some more drinks than a dancer came by. They laughingly played along. Wonder Girl held out a dollar bill and tucked it under his thin waistband as the guy gyrated there. They laughed and laughed. He was just a big muscle bound doofus, but nothing compared to a Cyborg or a Mammoth and he seemed so ridiculously full of himself. His dancing was so ridiculous, too, exaggerated hip movements with every step. The Titan girls exploded in laughter.

Another dancer came by and then another and they played along, offering tips and giving the exhibitionist jokes a slap to send them on their ways. Then, there was a lull in the music. No matter. The Titans girls were barely paying any attention to the official entertainment of the evening. They laughed some more amongst themselves and were telling stories when the music came booming forth again and the other women in the crowd of 200 clapped and cheered at a new batch of dancers.

Jinx was telling some of the others about the night the Titans had all gone to see Zatanna's show.

"-and she turned Garth into a frog."

"Why a frog?" laughed Mary Marvel.

"Don't you get it? Amphibian. And, of course, there's the whole prince turned into a frog fairy tale angle."

"Only it wasn't a kiss from a princess that eventually turned him back, it was from Roy!" crowed Argent.

Jinx was laughing with Argent, when she felt a tap on her shoulder from the other side, from Arrowette. And, suddenly she realized that the overall din of cheering, shouting and laughing from the 200 women in the room wasn't being augmented by any of the nine Titans girls.

A wide eyed Arrowette pointed to the aisle in front of them.

Jinx turned to look where the others were looking.

She dropped her empty glass onto the leather booth between her and Argent then her jaw dropped nearly as far.

Then, a smile slowly curled her lips as she muttered "Oh . . . my . . . gods."


	8. Over exposed part one

Author's note: I had to break this chapter into two parts. It was going to be too long.

***

Slowly, the seven civilian clothed Titans boys, Kid Flash, Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Hot Spot, Aqualad and Speedy trudged into the room off to the side of the much larger one that contained the bar and tables and stage where women danced and undressed for up to 200 men.

They moved with no enthusiasm. They weren't used to losing or being wrong or feeling powerless. They shuffled into the smallish room which turned out to be a sort of locker room with the usual bad carpeting and gray metal lockers. And once the door was closed behind them, tempers flared. Wally zipped over to Roy and shoved him with the palms of both hands.

"You idiot! Your ID's are foolproof, huh? You're so cool, huh? Well look where your cool got us!"

And then an incensed Cyborg shoved Roy against one row of lockers. "Mr. Party Planner, huh? Nice going . . asshole."

As Roy gathered himself, he saw he wasn't the only target of the group's ire, Gar and Ty were both in Dick's face.

"What the hell was that weak negotiating there, little man?" cracked Gar.

"What the hell were you doing caving like that? I gotta be some fricking chippendales dancer cuz of you!" Ty shouted and finished by pushing Dick to the carpet and as shocking as that was, Dick's not fighting back was even more so.

Garth, the improbably strong atlantean, was the peacemaker, pushing everyone apart with ease and calming everyone down.

"Well, what do we do now?" asked Gar after tempers had eased.

"The fat guy said to go in here and undress and that they'd pick four of us," said Ty repeating what they all knew.

"I could turn into a fly and go try to find where our ID's are," suggested Gar.

"That's no good. How would we explain you're not being here?" asked Roy.

"But they're fake ID's, anyway!" argued Ty. "They can't find us with those!"

"Um . . yeah, they can," countered Cy. "They can do a biometric analysis, relative position of eyes, size of nose, size of mouth, relative positions of your jaw, ears and cheekbones, the width and height of your face, all that on those pictures and compare 'em to any pictures in the data base. They've got security cameras in here, too. They'll find us. Worse, they might find say, Aqualad instead of just Garth Flounder."

"Oh."

"We need to get those ID's and whatever they put into their computer," said Robin trying to reassert some leadership. "But we can't do that immediately. We'll . . . we'll have to play along, for now."

Everyone seemed to sigh at once realizing they had no other options and they all started pulling off their jackets, shirts, pants etc till they were stripped down to their underwear. In the case of Wally, Dick, Cy, Gar and Garth, this meant boxer shorts of one sort or another. Wally looked over at Ty, who was wearing stretchy boxer briefs.

"Under dress pants, Ty? Really?"

Ty shrugged. "I didn't bring anything else with me."

And then Roy stepped to the end of the line of Titans boys that had formed, stepped there in his black silk mesh bikini style underpants.

Gar spoke for all the others when he looked at Roy and shook his head. "I can't believe we listened to a guy who wears those."

Roy did a little shimmy of a dance. "What? They're comfortable. And the chicks dig 'em. So do some of the guys."

"Maybe your kind of guys," said a head shaking Cy.

"Not all of us," said Garth rolling his eyes at Roy's exotic underwear.

"You guys are sure you don't see green?" whispered Gar adjusting his boxers.

Wally looked over again. The cloaking ring was doing its job. Gar looked like a fair skinned blond haired version of Garfield Logan. "No. It's cool. You're the bleached version of you."

"And . . uh . . no machine parts?" whispered Victor Stone with a questioning glance to the other six.

Dick Grayson glanced over at boxers wearing Vic, cloaking ring doing its job, only dark brown skin and black hair, no metal, no red eye. "None," he assured his teammate. And seeing sex freak Roy's underwear again, Dick sighed. He glanced at Wally then nodded over toward Roy and shook his head. Wally smirked.

A few moments later the fat man waddled in, with a blond woman the boys all recognized as one of the dancers, behind him. Only now she was wearing a lab coat over, well, next to nothing.

"Did you boys not hear me?" he bellowed. "I said take your clothes off! Underwear's clothin', ain't it?!"

Dick Grayson sputtered an objection prompting the fat man to get right up into his face. "Let me make this clear, shorty, cuz we ain't gonna have a whole lotta stoppin' and startin' and arguin' about every point along the way, here. Yer gonna do what I tell you to do or the police get you boys an' all those fake ID's. Period. That's the way it's gonna be."

The seven Titan boys glanced at each other. Naked?!

"Come on! All of ya! Take everythin' off!"

The seven Titans boys all reluctantly pulled off their boxers and briefs and, because a woman was in the room, covered their male equipment with both hands. In the middle of the line of seven naked boys, Dick glanced to both sides. There they were, his teammates. His pals. All the people who counted on him for leadership. The most powerful boys on the planet, powerless because of me. Naked and humiliated because of my failure to lead, he told himself. I failed. I failed. I failed.

Naked Wally, at one end of the line of Titan boys was trying to avoid eye contact with the strange woman looking him over from a foot away and looked to his right where he saw Dick, in the middle of the line, looking almost physically sick. He felt a little that way himself.

Oh god. Jinx is gonna kill me, he thought to himself before finally glancing to his left again only to see that the blond stripper was still staring at him but was now smiling too. And she had some kind of thin, yard long stick in her hand. He felt a tap against his bare backside. Was there some point at which this would stop getting worse?!

He stood rigidly at attention, ignoring the stripper in the lab coat and her stick. But she wouldn't leave him alone.

Tap.

At attention.

Tap. Tap.

Eyes focused like lasers looking forward.

Taptaptap. Finally, the stripper chuckled.

"Hell, yer lucky!" the fat man continued. "Coupla my . . performers up and quit on me or their stagin' some kind of strike over money or somethin'. Don't matter. Works out the same for tonight and pay ain't an issue for you boys. Yer payin' off yer debt to me by providing the entertainment tonight."

"Entertainment for whom?" asked Garth, like the others, standing at attention, naked and with both hands at his crotch.

The fat man chuckled and turned to the blond lady now standing behind Wally and Garth. "No sense of proportion, huh, Suzy?" Then he turned to naked Garth. "Ya didn't notice that the room you were in is only 'bout half the size of the buildin'? Yer gonna dance for the women in the audience on the other side, of course."

Five of the seven teen boys gulped nervously at the prospect. Roy "Speedy" Harper just smirked. Ty "Hot Spot" Randolph rolled his eyes, unimpressed and annoyed.

Slowly, the blond stripper in the lab coat, Suzy, went around the line of seven undressed Titans with a three foot long narrow stick in her hand. She'd been in situations like this before. The fat man had done this a couple times. Some pretty boy stepped over the line on one side of the building when they were short of dancers on the other side and the fat man sent him over to be the entertainment. But, even the ones that were in pretty good shape had a little flab or were hairy or had hideous tan lines or were a little weak in the arms or legs or abs or glutes. Something was always wrong with them despite their bravado about their looks. But these seven boys were fantastic! The black one on the end was huge. The others were all amazing swimmer, gymnast or track star bodies. Even the "worst" of the seven must've had 3% body fat, tops. And the red head on the end, the one with the buns! He never met a fat molecule. Oh, these boys would do. All seven would do. It just has to be narrowed down to four.

Suzy took her time. No need to rush this, not with boys like this! She tapped at the back of the short, dark haired one. The boy seemed petrified. She grinned silently. It was so cute when attractive men were shy. She kept working her way down the line of pretty boys. The blond was a bit less well muscled than the others. He sort of looked like a boy who'd just had a growth spurt. She tapped at the other red head's back side. He half turned toward her with a smirk. God, no shyness there! The smaller black guy didn't seem too annoyed either. The huge one on the end was.

And then she walked around front of them.

Mmm hmmm. Mmm hmmm. Mmm hmmmmmmmm.

God, seven pretty boys!

All seven! Not a single oversized nose or too deeply set pair of eyes or weak chin. Not one! Seven gorgeous boys. Six packs on all of them, hell, a clear eight pack on the freakish red head at the end. God, the beautiful light blue eyes and long lashes on the short, dark haired one. What a cutie!

She gave taps or pokes from her stick to this one's abs and that one's deltoids or pecs. here and there and then stepped back and quickly pronounced her judgement to the fat man, pointing with the yard long stick to each boy about whom she was commenting.

"Okay. The huge one on the end is just too big," she said pointing to cloaking ring disguised Cyborg. "The petite women are too intimidated by one that size. The other black one," she said pointing to naked Hot Spot, "will do just fine. Good swimmer physique, excellent tone. Same thing for the red head next to him with the smirk. Hell, he probably wants to," she added. The others noted the lack of denial from Roy Harper and the way he seemed to be smirking more than ever. Did he ever stop smirking?

"The blond one in the middle's a total hottie. They love that look for models. You could be on the cat walk right now pretty boy. I wonder if he already has. You look kind of familiar," she said looking Gar in the eye. "But, anyway, your look is just not quite man enough for here. Did you just had a growth spurt or something?"

"Um, yeah, kind of," Gar confessed, not elaborating that he'd been eight inches shorter just six months ago."

"You're in great shape, but you're just a little skinnier than the others, too skinny. The red head on the end," she said turning to Wally, "Wow. Do you have a fat molecule on you? What a taper! What's your chest size?"

Wally bit his lower lip. "Um, forty one," he muttered uncomfortably.

"And your waist?"

"Twenty eight," Wally lied not wanting to say twenty six and three quarters."

The blond woman chuckled. "And those buns! You were _made_ for this, carrot top. You're in."

Wally sighed, in disappointment at this news eliciting another chuckle from her.

"That just leaves our two dark haired boys," she continued, stepping closer to Garth and Dick standing at attention, side by side with their hands over their equipment. "Normally, fat man," she said over her shoulder, "I'd say pick him," she said gesturing to Garth. "Six one with terrific shoulders, great shape overall. The long hair's kind of interesting, too. But the job requires a personality, too. And the little five eight one here," she gestured to Dick, "is just such a cutie." She touched the end of her stick to Dick's small nose. "Neither one puts out a positive vibe for this but the little cutie here has a whole reluctance thing going that a lot of the women'll find irresistable. Plus, the eyes." She pointed to Garth. "I don't know what's going on with eyes that dark. But, the little dude here has dazzling light blues and lashes like every woman wishes for."

Dick seemed anything but pleased at these compliments. A few feet away, Gar snickered.

"That's it, then," said the fat man. "You four. You other three can get dressed but Willie," the fat man turned toward the door and shouted, "Willie!". The employee who'd been vacuuming up behind the fat man in the strip club, came through the door.

"Yeah boss."

"Take the clothes these four were wearing," said the fat man, pointing to the heaps in front of Wally, Dick, Roy and Ty, " and put them in the safe. And bring these boys some . . costumes to wear. Ya understand me? Cosssssssssstumes."

"Sure boss." The stooped over guy muttered then scooped up the clothes and shoes in front of each of the four and left the dressing room through another door.

Wally's mind raced. What's this gonna be like? God! Why'd I ever listen to Speedy, the guy in the silk mesh bikini underpants! And Wally remembered seeing a rerun of Saturday Night Live with the sketch where fatso Chris Farley had played at being a Chippendale's dancer on a split screen with that poofy haired actor, what was his name? The poofy haired one. Is that what this was? They'd have to dance like ridiculous fools like they did on that SNL sketch while wearing skin tight black pants and a dopy bow tie? Flash would be so ashamed of me. Is this what you do with super speed, Wally? You become an exotic dancer? Is that what you should be doing with your super power, Wally? Oh god.

Dick's mind raced. Why'd we ever listen to Speedy? So stupid! I let the guy wearing silk mesh bikini underpants call all the shots. Stupid!

All Batman's puritanism came flooding back into his thoughts, all Batman's visceral hatred of prostitution and pornography, any sex related crime or activity of any sort. He played their last confrontation out in his head.

I don't need your help Bruce. I can make it on my own, Bruce. I'm starting my own team. Maybe Bruce Wayne could help them but we don't need Batman.

Oh really? Don't come crawling back to me for help!

I don't need your help!

How would he chuckle at this? How much would he enjoy this? He'll throw this back in my face the rest of my life. I'll be in the Justice League satellite 20 years from now as we decide how to defend ourselves against an invasion from another galaxy and he'll throw it back at me. Are you sure, Dick. This better not be another situation where you end up dancing in a strip club to make amends.

Aaarrrggghhh!!

Ty's mind raced. Damn! Thought these guys were on top of things! Stupid Roy! Can't even set up a night of fun without screwing it up. And stupid Robin! He's supposed to be clever and cagey and all that. Mr. fricking leader. Ha! He collapsed like a house of cards there. You'll call the police and tell our mentors! Oooo! Ick! Alright, whatever you say. That's what happens when you live in a frigging tower instead of living in the real world and spending time on the streets.

Ty sighed and reminded himself to stay calm. A flaming head right now would put a dent in the old secret identity. Just hafta deal with this. Exotic dancing for a bunch of women, huh? Well, ha, I'll make those white boys look pathetic.

Roy was calm. Oh yeah. I am gonna strut my stuff. Suhweeeeeeeeeet!

The fat man interrupted their thoughts by clearing his throat and announcing. "Now that you boys won't have any choice but to wear your dance outfits. Here they are!" he chuckled and his lackey threw them onto the floor in front of the four. To the consternation of Wally, Dick and Ty but no reaction from Roy, four patches of black satiny, spandexy material with string-like attachments, looking like nothing else so much as four slingshots, were tossed inside. Dick picked them up with one hand still covering his equipment with the other.

"What are these? That's it?" he grumbled.

"Relax, Grayson," said Roy as he casually pulled on his. "I'm sure we'll start off with some kind of costume that we dance in wearing and then strip out of and then we just dance around in these at the very end. That's how they do these things."

"We dance around in these?!" groaned Dick holding one minimal garment out in front of him to display the shoelace width spandex waistband and similar single strap in back. "These?! Ty, look at this!!" Dick continued complaining but Ty also simply pulled on his slingshot of a garment and adjusted it as best he could. "Wally?!"

Wally sighed dejectedly. It was still getting worse.

But after another sigh, Wally only shrugged. What are we supposed to do? We're backed into a corner. With a sigh he bent over and picked up one of the slingshots and pulled it on. Finally, Dick did likewise. Then both spent a minute trying to adjust what little material as there was so that the presentation of their . . . equipment wasn't too outrageous. But they found, to their chagrin, that no matter what they did, the slingshots somehow made them look bigger than ever.

Wally groaned. Still getting worse!

The Kid Flash suit had always nicely compressed and disguised male endowment that elicited impressed guffaws even in the showers at Titans Tower. Robin's layered outfit, cape, top and pants had also served to hide equipment of a size that contradicted the first part but underscored the second of the nickname "boy wonder".

"Are you having the same trouble I'm having, Wally?" whispered a frantic hunched over Dick Grayson. "I'm not this . . . . it won't just hang . . down . . . . it makes me look even more . . . "

"Yeah . . I . . can't seem to get this stupid bulge to . . . no matter how I try to arrange it I look even more like a freak."

"Maybe you are," said a voice neither Dick nor Wally recognized as the door to the locker room opened. It belonged to a big beefy young guy, with a flat top haircut, built like maybe a fullback at a small college, with a handsome face and short cropped hair gelled to stand up. He dropped a small bag on the floor and pulled off a running suit like a player entering an NBA game. Underneath, he already had on black spandex pants like a Chippendale's dancer.

"That's just the way those fit," he told Dick and Wally. "More spandex in the middle, more nylon around the edges so you can't help but stretch out the middle. What're you complaining about, anyway? Hell, some exotic dancers stuff theirs. I mean, not me, of course," he lied, "other guys. Some of the others. Nobody complains that they look too hung."

Dick and Wally shrugged. Um, allright. Fine. The damn thing doesn't adjust. Allright. Fine. Whatever! Dammit! It would fit that way in front. It just would. But there was nothing in the back! Nothing!

At that moment, the building's ventilation system kicked on causing a slight breeze to pass over their bare skin, emphasizing their near nudity. Wally and especially Dick were frantic and upset at the situation they found themselves in.

"This is like something only the sluttiest girl would wear on the beach in Rio de Janeiro," Wally complained to Roy across the room tugging at the shoelace width waistband that could actually only be worn just above a guy's hips.

"I love that beach," Roy chirped back.

"Would you love it if you had to dress like this?" shot back Wally gesturing to the ridiculous black satin cone between his legs. Roy's immediate smile was all the answer he needed.

Dick shook his head in disgust.

The beefy guy held one hand up and glanced around the room. "Hey, anyway, the name's Lance Stryker. Glad to meet ya. Who are you guys?"

"Wally . . Swift," said Wally.

"Ty . . Owens," said Ty.

"Alan Raytahnteef," said Dick"

"Dick Grayson," said a grinning Roy who only grinned bigger upon seeing Dick's furious clenched teeth reaction. "We uh, we kind of got drafted from the other side of the building."

"Oh, really," said beefy guy and he reached out and shook Dick and Wally's hands, the two within reach. Wally turned to say something to Dick and beefy guy gave him a pat on his bare rear.

"Those're amazing. How'd you get 'em like that?" asked Lance. "I do squats and lunges and everything else but I can't get like that."

Wally froze. The room was silent. He glanced frantically at Dick. Did you see where he touched me?!?! Did you see?! Is that okay in this locker room? Is that actually okay in here?! More than three years as a Titan. More than a thousand showers after missions or training sessions with the other guys. No one ever put their hand back there. Not even Speedy!

Dick raised both eyebrows. I don't know!

"I . . I just am like this," Wally finally answered.

"Haha! Bitch always says that," Roy immediately chuckled as he walked over. "Truth is more like 200 reps in the morning and 200 at night on the Glute Blaster."

Lance nodded. "Yeah. Makes sense. Nobody's like that normally," he agreed then turned and fiddled with his bag at his locker.

Wally immediately stepped toward Roy. "You called me 'bitch'!" he angrily whispered. "I don't care what I'm wearing, Roy. I don't have to take that!"

Roy steered them both a few feet further away from Lance. "And do you want him to think you just . . are in that shape naturally? How could that be? Hmm? What would you have to be for that to be true? Maybe a-a superhero or something? See?"

Wally sighed. Reluctantly, he had to admit that Roy was right. He went back over to stand next to Dick. Because the four nearly naked Titans really were two distinct pairs, freaky Roy and semi-freaky Ty and uptight Dick and semi-uptight Wally. As music from the ladies room could be heard through the door that opened into that section of the building, Roy started dancing to it, as did Ty.

Meanwhile, all Wally and Dick could do was think about how disappointed their mentors would be if they could see them like this and occasionally glance, in horror, over their shoulders at their bare backsides in the full length mirror on the wall behind them.

Finally, egged on by Dick's air of humiliation, Gar could suppress it no more and burst out in laughter pointing at nearly naked Dick.

"Oh god! You . . wearing . . that!"

Dick rushed at him. "Keep your mouth shut, Gar. I don't want you blabbing about this to everyone. Is that understood?"

Gar nodded soberly, then snickered at Dick's bare back side as he turned away. Gar leaned over toward Vic next to him. "You . . are recording this all on video, of course."

Vic nodded ever so slightly with a smile.

Garth's expression wasn't quite a smile. "Ironic that you should now be attired like that, isn't it, Wallace?" he said to Wally across the room. "And told by the very same stripper that you'd said had a body for stripping that you, yourself, have a body that means you should be a stripper,. That is irony, Wallace. Yes, it is. Perhaps now you might wish you had agreed to a evening of more high minded entertainment, as I had suggested, now that you, yourself, will be the entertainment. Instead of seeing other young men dance Le Corsaire, you'll be dancing yourself but nothing quite so artistic. And-"

"Enough, Garth! I get the point!"

"Well you brought this bad karma on yourselves," noted Garth with a final hmmph before crossing his arms and stepping back against the lockers next to Gar and Cy.

While The Titans boys, clothed and nearly naked talked, Lance Stryker checked out the competition. Damn. These guys are cut! Especially that one redhead. But he felt better noticing that none had built up their pecs like a pro would. Still, they all had that schoolboy thing going on that some women went crazy for and terrific glutes. Again, that redhead. Lance shook his head. The kid was insanely toned, too. Usually when guys got down below 2 percent fat they started to get veiny, like their bodies were straining to deal with it. This kid had no fat at all and looked natural. Wow. Total pretty boy, too. Lance found himself hoping the kid couldn't dance at all so that he wouldn't suck up all the tips. He stepped forward and pulled up the shade on the door into the ladies section of building. At first, Dick and Wally jumped out the way. Those women will see us like this! But, quickly they realized that it was a two way mirror that allowed the male exotic dancers to see what was going on out there without the women being able to see in.

Wally and Dick edged slowly forward, inherently curious about how the present group of dancers was doing the job they'd have to do. And slowly their jaws dropped watching what was going on. The guys "dancing" looked just like beefy guy. Big, young and oddly overmuscled in the pecs. But more than that they looked stupid. They looked so completely, ridiculously stupid! Wally and Dick looked back and forth from the big doofuses comically gyrating their hips to each other. We have to do that?!

WE HAVE TO DO THAT?! THAT?!

"we have to do that?!" they both finally mumbled aloud.

"Yer Damn right yer gonna do that," said the Fat Man, back in the room. "You ain't gonna get outta this by not tryin'. I tell new hires that they can expect to make $200 a night in tips. I expect better than that from a bunch of pretty boys like you four. If you don't end up with twelve hunnert dollars total, the four of ya, I'll consider that to be you boys not trying and I call up my friend on the force. He'll come running. And it won't be from far away, either. He's got a front table back over there where ya came from."

Wally and Dick turned back to watch the goings on among the ladies in the larger room. One of the beefy doofuses was doing a sort of inch worm movement simulating sex and furiously displaying his tongue to the cheering women.

Wally and Dick looked at each other further in shock.

And then, to top it off, the beefy doofus stood up and one of the women squeezed a dollar bill inside his string-like waistband and slapped his backside. Dick and Wally both looked to the Fat Man like kids demanding a call from an umpire.

"They-they touched him!" complained Dick, pointing out the two way mirror at the perceived transgression.

"They slapped his butt! Do something!" demanded Wally, remembering that any man who touched a female stripper on the other side could get thrown out of the club.

The Fat Man stepped forward chuckling and put his fat, pudgy fingered hands on their shoulders. "You boys don't seem to understand that the rules are, well, they're a bit different on this side of the building," he said, pointing toward the ladies side where a shrieking, manic middle aged woman was reaching out for the backside of another beefy doofus. "See, you're strong young men. If a few women get a little over enthusiastic in . . appreciatin' how pretty you boys are, what's the problem? They can't hit ya with a closed fist or bite ya but everythin' else is fair game. Really now, what could happen?" he said and backed away, chuckling at the two shy ones. He noticed that the other red head and the black one were smirking at their modest friends' reaction.

What could happen?

Wally and Dick were both looking out into the large room with expressions of horror and, unconsciously, the two teen boys did the exact same thing, slowly sliding their hands down their sides and over their backsides.

What could happen? What could happen?! A frantic Dick remembered the infamous "incident" at the Gotham School for Wayward Girls. 13 years old, scheduled to appear with Batman at the Gotham School for Wayward Girls and on their way there when they had to stop and fight Two Face and his flunkeys. They were just starting to clean up after beating them when Robin noticed the time. They were already late but just five blocks away from the school. Batman sent Robin there alone. Half his cape had been torn off and he had several scratches and bruises. But that was nothing compared to what happened to him once he stepped inside and started up the main aisle to the stage inside the school. There was an odd murmur in the air from the very start. It was different from how people reacted to scary Batman entering the room. They were all smiling at him, grinning oddly. It was different right away. Then, one wayward girl shouted, "Oh my god, he's so cute!" and they swarmed. They swarmed! Standing there at the two way mirror, Dick recalled his terror. Wayward girls swarming from every direction. Wayward girls screaming like banshees. He couldn't fight them. He couldn't hurt them. All those little hands! All those wayward little hands! Grasping! Pinching! Squeezing! Nothing would calm them. Nothing would stop them.

And now they'll all have alcohol and I'll be wearing this, he thought and looked down at his insufficient attire. Oh god.

"What could happen? What could happen?" Wally repeated to himself. He thought back to the circumstances that had resulted in the issuance of a total of 4,287 demerits at the St. Mary's School for Girls in Keystone City, a total unmatched since the Spanish Inquisition he was told. He and Flash had saved the lives of three girls who attended the school. Please come and speak to our girls. Give them the example of fine, healthy upstanding men like yourselves, the headmistress had said. And then Flash was called away on some Justice League thing at the last minute. He thought maybe they should reschedule or cancel but Kid Flash had said he could handle it. God! He wasn't some little baby. He was a hero. And he was 14 now. He was growing. He did solo missions now. It was just a public appearance. People were always in awe of him and Flash at those things. I can handle it, he told Flash.

Maybe he would have handled it if he hadn't given in to the headmistress's desire that he walk up the center aisle leading to the stage and podium. Flash always just super sped to a spot. But the headmistress wanted it to be a dramatic entrance. He went along with it. But he'd barely started down the center aisle when, all of a sudden, there were shrieking girls in plaid skirts and white blouses coming at him from all directions. He couldn't hurt them. They were girls! But they didn't seem concerned with hurting him. All those long finger nails! All those pinching fingers! They tugged and tore and only after the headmistress had been screaming into the microphone for five minutes shouting out the penalties for the girls for how they'd treated their guest was he able to free himself.

"Ten demerits for Catherine Phillips! 25 demerits for Susan O'Reilly! 50 demerits for . . .!" He stumbled to his feet and up to the podium. He couldn't recall what he'd said. He was shocked that girls would react that way to him. And even more that they would do that to him. And then afterward, he'd had to have Aunt Iris's help. Because the only way to fix a torn Flash suit is to super glue the tears back together. But he couldn't reach back there. He tried to give her a story. Yeah, it was, uh . . . Trickster who tore my uniform like this. That's right. Trickster. But his ace reporter aunt kept him talking even while she had him bend over the dining room table and pretty soon his story crumbled and Aunt Iris laughed.

As bad as his Kid Flash suit was, this slingshot thing was infinitely worse. And now the girls would all be liquored up. Oh god.

What could happen? What *would* happen! It was still getting worse.

But things seemed a little better when one of the Fat Man's lackeys came into the locker room with Chippendales dancers style black tights for Dick, Wally, Roy and Ty to wear. The one complication was that they were secured at the sides by buttons and velcro. This was odd but Dick and Wally, especially, were ecstatic to have anything else to wear over the slingshots. Then, the Fat Man told them they'd be performing almost a little act at the start in which Suzy, the stripper in the lab coat would pretend to be a teacher and they would all pretend to be students. "You look so young, we may as well use it," said the Fat Man. And Suzy took it from there. They would dance out to the small stage at the center of the semi-circular room and she would pantomime asking them three questions. If they got that question right, she would give a star. If they got it wrong, she would give a whack across the bottom with her stick. She waved the stick back and forth with a smile. Dick, Wally and Ty looked at it anxiously. Roy smirked. She continued and explained, with a mischievous smile, that if they got the last question wrong, she would adjust their tights for them. But, at any rate, after their little skit, they would dance around the room till their 90 minute shift was up.

With that, Suzy left the room. Through the two way mirror, they could see that the other dancers, five pumped up morons in g-strings, were all approaching the door, grinning and waving goodby to the women, some of whom were shouting for the beefy doofuses to please stay. Dick and Wally jumped back from the door so as not to be seen and still nearly got run into by the guys entering the locker room as the music boomed forth through the open door. There were a few moments of competitive appraisal as their might be at a gym when a new team stepped onto the court. The beefy doofuses seemed impressed by the tone of the Titans boys but Dick and Wally could almost hear them snickering to themselves about the less muscular incognito heroes. But they were more interested in counting their tips, pulling one crumpled bill after another, ones, fives and even some tens and twenties, from their waistbands and the fronts of their slingshots.

"What is this, amateur night again?" a blond one kidded Lance Stryker. "Who are you guys?" he asked, looking around the room.

"Dick Grayson, damn glad to meet ya," said Roy stepping forward and shaking hands with the blond beefy doofus, as the real Dick Grayson fumed again at Roy hijacking his name. "And that's Ty Owens, Wally Swift and Alan Raytahnteef," he said pointing around the room. The other doofuses introduced themselves. All had comically fake names. And quickly, they changed into other clothes and were out of there.

No sooner had they gone than the opening of "Hot for Teacher" by Van Halen could be heard from the main room and the Fat Man returned with a wireless microphone. Wally felt his pulse race. Dick looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown.

"Okay, what're you boys' names again," asked the Fat Man. "I gotta introduce you."

"Dick Grayson," said Roy to one more bout of fuming by the incognito boy wonder.

"Hmmph. Dick. That'll work."

"Ty Owens."

"Alan Raytahnteef."

"Wally Swfit."

The Fat Man shook his head. "Nope. Can't use Wally. Only geeks and losers are called Wally. Doesn't fit the image."

Now it was Wally fuming as the other three smiled.

"How 'bout Wesley?" suggested the Fat Man. "Wesley Swift."

Wally shrugged. Okay.

The opening of Hot for Teacher was still going on, they'd obviously looped it to be as long as they wanted. And then the Fat Man lined up the boys, Dick and Wally nearly hyperventilating and opened the door. Roy, at the front of the line, the only one visible to the women smirked at 200 pairs of eyes staring at him through the swirling lights.

"Ladies, tonight we have a special treat for you, five dancers who've just finished tryouts at the olympic trials. First up, Dick . . Grayson!"

Roy danced out into the room toward what looked like a teacher's desk set up on the small stage in a spot on imitation of how the previous batch of beefy doofuses had been dancing.

"Next, Lance . . Stryker!"

As Lance gyrated out into the crowd a heavily breathing Dick turned to Wally. "I can't do this. I don't dance, Wally. You know that. I can't do this. I can't be loose and just-"

The Fat Man introduced Ty and then grabbed Dick by the elbow.

"It's all about acting shorty! Never stop smiling. Never stop movin' yer little butt. It's all about acting. Pretend you like it. Pretend you enjoy showin' yersefl off and it'll go fine. It's actin' more than dancin'," he said and then let go of Dick's elbow.

Wally was now at the front of the line. He could see a few dozen of the women closest to the door inspecting him. He turned to his pal over his shoulder. "Dick, you're a better gymnast and acrobat than I could ever be. You can do anything I can do. Just imitate me and fake a smile. Okay?"

"Okay," Dick squeaked.

"Wesleeeeeey . . Swift!"

At the announcing of his stage name, Wally danced out, trying to fake a smile and feeling completely ridicuous. He stopped next to the teacher's desk on the stage where Roy, Ty and Lance Stryker had stopped.

"Alan . . Raytahnteef!" boomed the P.A. system and as the others watched, Dick froze. He took one step forward into the room and the door closed behind him but he took no more steps. He didn't shake or gyrate or do anything. And just when Wally thought he might have to run over and somehow help his pal, Dick ran and leaped forward, starting a tumbling run worthy of any olympic gymnast that finished with him sticking the landing right beside Wally and Roy.

"Nice 'dancing' Mary Lou Retton," snickered Roy.

And then the show began.


	9. Over exposed part two

The show was beginning. If only Dick, Wally, Ty and Roy had known what was going on elsewhere, they wouldn't have been out in front of 200 cheering women ridiculously dancing in black tights.

Cyborg's intrepid hand, sent off to find the stip club's computer, had hit paydirt. It had swerved around, table legs, chairs, and staggering customers and deftly made its way to a small door just past the bar in the "gentlemen's" side of the building. All the while, it sent video back to Cyborg, who controlled it. The hand waited, pressed against the base board at the side wall of the giant room, till finally someone opened the door. The hand scooted in right behind that person and quickly scurried under the desk. While that person was sneaking a drink from the Fat Man's special quintuple malted 125 year old scotch, the hand opened up one finger tip and sent out a probe, a cable with a tip that would connect to most data access ports.

Snickt!

A connection was made to the pc on the office desk. If the employee had been paying attention to anything but the scotch and the view from the peep hole of the girls dancing on the stage, he might have noticed the sudden flurry of lights on the side of the pc indicating activity. Cyborg read the data that the hand was sending. Office, word and excel. Child's play. He determined where the scanned copies of the ID's were kept and erased them. He connected to the club's other office, figured out the layout of files there and erased the copies sent to that pc. For good measure, he navigated over to the club's scanner and wiped its memory clean. Then, he sent the worst computer viruses he knew of into all the club's machines.

Snickt!

The hand disconnected its cable from the pc, withdrew it and pulled it back inside one finger then closed that fingertip.

"I got rid of all the computer records of our ID's," Cy informed Gar and Garth just as Roy was dancing out into the larger room.

The secret drinker left the small office and turned out the light. The hand came out from under the desk and started searching, with a tiny flashlight, all the surfaces in the office for their confiscated fake ID's. A minute's search confirmed that they weren't out in the open anywhere, but when the hand nudged the top desk drawer open with one finger there they were. Cy could see in his mind, a closeup of a fake ID with a picture of Garth and the name "Garth Flounder".

"I got our ID's," Cyborg informed Gar and Garth just after Dick had made his impressive tumbling run.

"Then our friends don't need to be completlely embarassing themselves out there? Do they?" asked Garth.

"No . . . . . . . they don't need to," replied Cy.

"It's not . . . . . . . absolutely necessary," added Gar.

First Gar and Cy and then even Garth broke into grins and Garth turned to Cy. "Will we be able to play the video in Hi-Def at the Tower?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way," smiled Cy.

And as he was saying this, the hand had gathered up the seven ID's opened up its palm revealing a storage compartment and tucked the ID's away there. It jumped up toward the closed office door with the strength of its fingers and knocked twice, loudly as it was dropping down to the floor. A passing waitress heard the knocks and opened the door but was perplexed to see no one as the hand scurried past her feet. A minute later, the hand was at the door to the locker room from the "gentlemen's" side. Cy cracked the door open and the hand rushed inside then jumped up and rejoined his wrist.

Out in the club, Hot for Teacher by Van Halen was blaring from the sound system. The blond stripper, Suzy was pointing to the word "QUIZ" on a dry wipe board and then a math problem "4x9x2=?". The four Titans boys in chippendales dancer outfits plus veteran Lance Stryker, were all dancing in place. Well, all but Dick were dancing in place. He moved slightly. Then "teacher" Suzy pointed to white plastic tablets in front of each dancer. There was a first line with three numbers, 36, 24 and 72 and spots for pegs to be inserted. All four Titan boys inserted the peg at 72. Lance looked at theirs and then did likewise. But when they held the white plastic tablets up in front of them, the numbers had switched on Wally's such that his peg was now at 24. Suzy shook her head and on time with the beat of the song, gave Wally two swats across his backside.

"Ow! Hey! I got that right!" he complained to no avail. And one by one, the others all had their correct answers wash out, too, and also got a couple swats from Suzy with the audience of 200 roaring with each swat. The pattern continued on the next question and then on the final one.

"The peg is magnetized and the correct answers have the same polarity. We can't get the right one," complained Dick.

Still getting worse, thought Wally.

No matter what the guys chose as their answer, the correct answer would move around inside the tablet and avoid the peg. Suzy even put a dunce cap on Dick. The audience roared. But even more so when she enacted an extra punishment for the boys all missing the last question. First Roy, after she gave him a couple swats, she grabbed at the waist of his Chippendales dancer tights and pulled them right off him like a player removing his warmups before entering an NBA game. Only Roy didn't have basketball shorts on underneath. He only had on the black satin slingshot.

The women in the audience roared.

Dick nearly cried out, "No!"

One by one, Suzy pulled off Ty's, then Lance Stryker's then Wally's and finally Dick's Chippendales outfits leaving them in only their little black slingshots in front of 200 cheering women. As Hot for Teacher reached a guitar crescendo, she gestured for them to spread around the room. Wally glanced at Dick. He looked like he might have a nervous breakdown or something. Wally leaned over toward him. "I'll go ahead of you. Just do what I do and remember to smile like that fat guy suggested. Act!"

Dick nodded.

And so began what Dick Grayson considered to be the most humiliating 90 minutes of his life. For him it was worse than he had imagined.

For Wally it was both better and worse. He was thankful that the women never swarmed over him like those girls at that catholic school, despite his now being nearly naked and the women being quite liquored up. And it was better in that, the shock and shame of it wore off as he went along more than he expected. The way they danced for the women, always swiveling their hips, was stupid looking, completely ridiculous, he thought. But Wally plastered on a fake smile and after a few minutes of it found that he could do it. It helped that, even without a mask, he was cloaked in anonymity. He didn't know any of them. They didn't know him. He was just acting.

And, though he would have hesitated to admit it to anyone, the reaction of the women to him was a sort of compliment. The problem was, and what made it worse than he had imagined it would be was the way they all treated him like an object with full rights to paw and fondle and slap him as they wished. Did every woman there have to swat his backside? It was particularly bad as he was getting tips. He had to get his share, $1200 for the group, the Fat Man had said. Wally intended to make sure he did his part for the group. Some drunken woman at a table near him would hold up a one or five or ten or twenty. Wally would give a sort of inward sigh and shimmy over in the expected fashion and continue dancing as the woman squeezed the bill under his waistband. Some went for the front of the slingshot, one screeching to her friends, "Oh my god, that's his real hair color!". Most went for the waistband. Inevitably that woman and the others around her would give him a slap and they would all erupt in laughter.

One thing that stuck him, besides their open palmed hands, was the age of the women in the audience. There were women old enough to be his mother and even grandmother desperately pawing at him and shouting drunkenly. The music played on the club's sound system seemed to reflect this audience demographic as there were songs from the 80's and even some from the 70's. Wally feared that a certain number from the 70's would be played and sure enough, it was. Right at the worst possible moment, the loss of anonymity.

Wally had danced up to another banquet table at which a huge woman, fairly tall even seated and easily double his weight pulled him toward her and slowly jammed a 10 dollar bill down the pouch of his slingshot. He was trying to dance a little bit as she did this when Shake Your Booty boomed forth from the sound system, loud enough that no one could hear Wally groan. The women at that table were suddenly driven into a frenzy of slapping his rear and tugging at his slingshot. It was at that moment that he heard a voice he recognized.

"Wally? Wally West? Is that you?"

Wally turned around, almost too fast to be someone without super speed, to see Lauren Phillips, a girl he'd known at school and kind of liked sitting beside Karen Hatcher, a friend of hers whom he'd always disliked.

Wally danced in the middle of several women, two of whom held out 5 dollar bills that they stuffed in Wally's overflowing waistband as he complied with the song title in front of them.

"Oh my god, it is you! Wally?! What are you doing here?"

"I . . I do this, now," said Wally as he continued dancing in place.

"What happened? You . . you were so smart," asked Lauren while her friend Karen doubled over laughing.

Wally momentarily groaned. He and Karen had always disliked each other, from first grade on. She was a particularly nasty girl, he thought, who had a weird dislike for smart boys. They pretty much stayed away from each other except for one confrontation in 8th grade when she'd called him a "hopeless nerd" and he'd fired back with both barrels, calling her a "homely, anti-intellectual loser". She was laughing out loud now, drawing an irritated glance from Lauren.

"I-I owed some people some money," Wally invented, still shaking his booty as the song demanded while an old woman behind him giggled. "I couldn't pay them back. They-they gave me the option of doing this. I-"

"Stripper boy!" shouted Karen. "You're a stripper boy!" And then she broke into more laughter.

"I'm not a stripper!" Wally corrected her. "I'm an exotic dancer!"

Karen's guffaws were now joined by Lauren's suppressed chuckle and before Wally could think of what to do or say next, Karen got her wallet out and produced three five dollar bills. Wally sighed in frustration and dutifully danced over to her to receive his tip. While he gyrated in a slow circle in front of her, he had to listen to her venomous delight in his apparent fall in life.

"Oh god! Wally West, stripper boy! I can't wait to tell everyone! Remember that red haired boy who thought he was so much smarter than me? You know what he does now? He's a stripper! Ahahahahaha!! Where'd all your brains get you, huh nerd? You're a stripper! Ahahaha! I'm gonna tell every single person who ever knew you. Wally West works as a stripper!"

And to punctuate her words and the fact that she'd squeezed the last of her 5 dollar bills under his waistband, she gave him a slap across his backside. Wally retreated angrily, wanting nothing more than to get away from her but the other women at the table were all holding up bills to give him tips. It was extremely hard to fake a smile at this point. And to add onto it, Karen got out her camera phone and started taking pictures of nearly naked Wally being fawned over by the middle aged women at the table.

"God, look at you! If you were so smart you'd have worn tight clothes to show that body off instead of those loose gangsta clothes you always wore," she snickered from 5 feet away. "There was even a girl who was convinced that you were Kid Flash! Ahahahaha!! Wait till I tell her. Wally West . . stripper boy! Genius in a g-string! Ahahaha!!"

Wally was furious. But what could he do? Nothing, it turned out because a moment later the huge woman, finished some sort of discussion with the other women at one end fo the table, stood up and grabbed the back of Wally's waistband.

"Hey!" he protested. "What're you doing?"

"We're taking you into the champagne room!" she declared and the other women clapped and chanted. "Cham-pagne room! Cham-pagne room!"

Wally was forced to backpedal, awkwardly to stay with the huge woman who had a hold of him. Four other women from that table followed him and three other women got up from their tables and trooped merrily into a dimly lit side room alongside the gigantic woman. Once the door was shut, this smallish room with a leather banquet booth and two smaller tables lived up to the name. Wally found himself at the sent of a group of women intermittently spraying champagne all over him and then, he could no more than whisper when recounting it later, licking it off him. When, 10 minutes later, the eight women were told their time in the champagne room was up, Wally left feeling sticky and dirty all over.

But that particular room was kinder to him than it would be to others.

First, Wally was not the only one to lose the comfort of anonymity. The Titan girls were having a good time at their table at the edge of the room. Some beefy doofuses had danced by and the Titans girls had irritated them by openly laughing at them. Then the girls had sort of tuned out the ridiculous dancers for a while. There had been some sort announcements of names or something but they hardly payed any attention to it. They were drinking and laughing among themselves so happily that the activities in the rest of the club were unimportant.

"So, it is not the size of the earth boy's feet that I should consider?" Starfire was asking.

"Nope. There's a better correlation to nose size," Arrowette informed her.

"But the Robin has a small nose and yet . . "

"Well none of these things are perfect," said Arrowette. "I mean, there are boys with small feet who have big-"

"And the archers? My god," laughed Argent over the top of the other conversation.

"Hey!" complained Arrowette.

"Sorry," apologized Argent. "We were comparing the various groups, supers, bats, flashes, archers, marvels. No offense, but, I mean, look at Speedy and Green Arrow!"

"Dinah's a saint for putting up with Ollie," said Bat Girl to nods all around.

"And nobody can put up with Roy for long," laughed Argent.

"Zatanna said the Flashes are the best and she even dated Batman," said Jinx to Bat Girl.

"What?!" Bat Girl screeched.

"Didn't you know?"

"Oh, yeah, Batman's a real chatty Cathy. He used to tell me and Robin all his relationship news. What the hell do you think?"

"Flash is a -hic- DILF," said a tipsy Mary Marvel before breaking into giggles.

"What is the DILF?" asked Starfire.

Wonder Girl whispered an explanation in Starfire's ear, which Starfire absentmindedly repeated out loud.

"Dad . . I'd . . like . . to . . .," Starfire burst into giggles.

Jinx turned to Argent. "We sooooooooooo made the right choice in giving her a cloaking ring that makes her blond."

"Flash is pretty fine, conceded Bat Girl. I was at a thing in Gotham City where he was there with Batman and it was funny how they gave off totally different vibes. Everyone backs off Batman but the middle aged women practically wanted to rush the podium to get at Flash. How do you deal with all the little tarts wanting a shot at Wally?"

Jinx rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't believe some of these little ditzes wanting to get their hands on him. One time, Wally and I got to this gas line explosion. It was a diversion by Professor Chang's boys. Blow up a gas line over here. Do something else over there. Duh. Coordinated Heist 101. "

Bee nodded with a smirk. That had been the class.

"Anyway, this gas line starts a housing project on fire. Wally starts doing his thing, speeding everyone out of the way. I made all this stuff collapse on the gas line and put the fire out then went over toward the housing project. I come up behind these two girls shrieking to each other about how cute Kid Flash is and then I hear the two of 'em make up this scheme to pretend to need mouth to mouth to get a kiss from him."

"Oh my god, really?"

"Not bad."

"Um, yeah, bad, definitely bad if you talk about it out loud in front of his fiancee. Anyway, the two of 'em lie down and pretend like they've fainted. And a second later, the red and yellow blur zipping around the place stops at their feet. But I put a hand up to Wally. Stop! And, in the greatest bit of timing ever, a green condor swoops down to where we are and lands. I motion for Gar to be quiet and go over and whisper in his ear. "Gorilla" I tell him and also "mouth to mouth resucitation" then I point to the girls. He gives me a quizzical look and I whisper 'they're faking it'. Gar looks at Wally and puts two and two together. He smirks and changes into a huge green gorilla then goes over and starts locking lips with one girl blowing gorilla breath into her mouth. Gods! If you shot that girl with a gallon of adrenaline she could not jump up faster. You never heard such screeching. The other one jumped up, too, before Gar could give her some emergency care."

The table burst into laughter.

"Never mess with a sorceress's guy," said Jinx as the guffaws were dying down.

"Hell, just don't mess with a sorceress at all," said Argent and she turned to Wonder Girl, Arrowette and Mary Marvel in particular. "Let me tell you about our group trip to see Zatanna's show a couple months back."

Jinx joined in on the delicious storytelling. Titan boys lording it over on the girls after winning an informal competition against the girls at the Tower. Jinx taking a call from Zatanna just a minute later and spilling out her frustration at how some of them, in particular, had acted. And then, onstage . . .

"-and she turned Garth into a frog," snickered Jinx.

"Why a frog?" laughed Mary Marvel.

"Don't you get it? Amphibian. And, of course, there's the whole prince turned into a frog fairy tale angle."

"I would love to have seen when she did that to Dick!" grumbled Bat Girl. "A little bat! Ha!"

"Only it wasn't a kiss from a princess that eventually turned Garth back,. It was from Roy!" crowed Argent. "Roy the jackass!"

Jinx was laughing with Argent, when she felt a tap on her shoulder from the other side, from Arrowette. And, suddenly she realized that the others weren't laughing and that the overall din of cheering, shouting and laughing from the 200 women in the room wasn't being augmented by any of the nine Titans girls.

A wide eyed Arrowette pointed to the aisle in front of them.

Jinx turned to look where the others were looking.

She dropped her empty glass onto the leather booth between her and Argent then her jaw dropped nearly as far.

Then, a smile slowly curled her lips as she muttered "Oh . . . my . . . gods."

For a second, nine Titan girl jaws had dropped nearly to the floor. There, in front of them, shaking and shimmying for their pleasure was, not another big beefy doofus dancer but Roy Harper. Roy Harper wearing only the same comical slingshot thing as the doofuses had worn.

There was a moment's pause.

And then the Titan girls all burst into raucous laughter.

R-Roy . .

R-Roy . . the . . exotic dancer?!?!?!

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

They doubled over and slapped the table and fell over sideways into each other. Their eyes watered and their sides got sore.

But, eventually, it struck all of them that Roy, dancing away in front of them, wasn't the least bit embarassed about it. Hell, he liked it! What the hell was he doing there working as an exotic dancer! And even in front of them, he liked it?!?!

Arrowette reached into her pockets and produced a 5 dollar bill. Roy danced over and swiveled in front of her as she slipped it into his overflowing waistband. Argent burst into more laughter, leaning against Jinx and shaking her head. "To Roy, this is just another job."

"You can't shame the shameless," agreed Jinx.

All the Titans girls Roy had had, along with Bee whom he hadn't, gave Roy tips as a means for super strong Mary Marvel and Wonder Girl and some of the othersto give the archer slaps across his unprotected backside that had him rushing to get away to the next table.

"Too bad," said Argent. "I wanted to get the story of why he's here and where are the others."

And then Dick Grayson came "dancing" toward them.

The Titan girls broke into louder laughter than when they'd seen Roy. All except for one. Bat Girl looked instantly focused and energized.

It was some 10 minutes later that Wally was leaving the champagne room, covered in partly licked off champagne and feeling dirtier than if he'd rolled in mud. With great effort he plastered on a fake smile and started dancing away, doing the job. From a table away, out of the corner of his eye he saw another group of women approaching the door to the champagne room. Younger women. He froze. He recognized Wonder Girl, Bat Girl and Mary Marvel and the cloaking ring disguised versions of some of the others. He turned away but not before he'd made eye contact with a smirking Wonder Girl. And not before he saw that she and blond Starfire held aloft a certain five foot eight 145 pound leader, carried him waist high like a hunting trophy and as though he weighed nothing and this certain five foot eight 145 pound leader seemed to be calling out for help but had napkins stuffed in his mouth muffling any sound. Walking beside him pulling on his hair was Bat Girl with a mean glint in her eyes.

Wally paused, but what could he do. He went back to his degrading, ridiculous job. In the shuffle of the dancers around the semi-circular room more than a hundred feet across, he didn't see much of Dick again till the night was finally, blessedly over. The music stopped and the voice of the Fat Man came over the P.A. system telling the women that Exposures wanted the night to continue but that Jump City regulations required that they close in 10 minutes.

Wally felt such relief at getting through it. And he looked down at his humiliating slingshot attire and saw dozens and dozens of bills tucked underneath and into it. He hadn't kept strict track of things but was certain he'd garnered more than the $300 per dancer required of the four of them. He made his way over to the door to the locker room. Some women still pawed at him as he went past. He just ignored it.

There was a bit of a crush at the door. Wally sighed. He didn't want to wait even another minute. But Roy was signing autographs for adoring women, signing them as "Dick Grayson". Wally looked around for Dick to see his reaction. At last, Dick approached, but he was trailed by 15 women who still wanted more of him, pulling at his arms and giving him more tips. One kissed his ear.

"Come on! Hurry up and get in there, Roy!" Dick shouted as he rubbed his backside.

Roy snickered noticing that the women were aggressively pawing at Dick. "I'm with my fans. What, are they gonna do, carry you off if you have to wait another minute?"

And he turned to the next woman with a smile. "Would you like that autograph personalized?"

And just as Roy finished asking this, they did carry Dick away.

Somehow, the combination of unthreatening size but amazing physical condition, striking light blue eyes and long lashes, extremely handsome face and a constantly emitted air of shyness had struck a chord with the women in that audience, a deeper chord of response than was struck by Roy's enthusiasm, Ty's energy or Wally's appearance. He didn't collect as many tips as the others but there was something about the exceptionally pretty, dark haired one that drove the women wild and at the height of the their alcohol consumption, at the end of the night, they acted on the group vibe of wanting to do something about it.

Just as Roy went inside the locker room door and Ty followed, the crowd of insatiable women pulled Dick away, two women to each limb. Not wanting to spend a moment longer dressed like that, Wally only shouted, "Come on, Dick, let's go," to his apparently crowd surfing pal and went into the locker room too. He, Roy and Ty started changing and tallying up their tips. They were able to show the Fat Man that they'd made more than $1200 tips without even considering Dick's. The Fat Man sent for one of his lackeys to bring their ID's but the flunkey returned a minute later with the news that they were gone. Wally was upset but Cy winked for him to calm down and the Fat Man promised to destroy them before offering all three of them jobs as dancers any time they wanted. They declined. Even Roy. At least in front of the others.

They wanted to shower, but the single shower stall in a corner of the room, barely let out more than a trickle of water. Ty shook his head. "I want to use the high pressure showers at the Tower, anyway." Wally and Roy agreed.

And then there was the other issue. The girls.

Wally made sure there was no one else in the locker room then got Cy to let him borrow his communicator, the one he stored in his metal arm and quickly pressed Wonder Girl's code.

"Uh, hi, Cassie. It's me, Wally."

"I can see you," she smirked. Wally could see some kind of street background behind her and blond Starfire and Mary Marvel behind her. "I saw you earlier, too, speedster. Nice buns!' the girls behind her broke into laughter.

"It-it wasn't our plan for the night to end up like that. Please tell Jinx I'm sorry. I know she didn't want to see me for 24 hours before."

"But apparently 200 strangers could see you, huh, speedster?" she first reproached him then laughed.

"I-I said I'm sorry. I-"

He stopped talking. The small screen showed the palm of her hand and he could faintly hear Wonder Girl talking to someone else in the background.

"Your fiancee says that you guys had better not be at the Tower before 2:30 and that you'll have to find some other room to sleep in. She doesn't want to see you before the ceremony."

"Um, sure, Cassie. Got it."

"And Wally?"

"Yeah, Cassie?"

"I mean it . . . . . . those are some great buns!" The picture cut out with the sound of multiple girls laughing in the background.

Wally gave the communicator back to Cy then turned to Roy. "Marrying Jinx is no leap of faith. Ever listening to advice from you again, that'll be a leap of faith."

The guys talked quietly among themselves and finished dressing and only then did they notice, hey, where's Dick?

Wally peeked out the locker room door into the big room just as a shouting mass of some 75 women was funneling through an auxiliary doorway into an alley on one side of the building.

"Dick?!" Wally shouted. He heard some kind of yelp in response. "We'll get the car!" He bellowed at the top of his lungs and quickly told the others.

Five foot eight, 145 pound Dick Grayson was in the alley beside the building at that moment. He'd tried for five minutes to fight his way through the horde of shrieking women to get to the locker room but he didn't want to hurt anyone and he wasn't strong enough to bull his way through. A couple times he almost got loose to jump over the crowd but one woman or another always had hold of an arm or leg or something else. He and the thirty women within reach of him had moved not toward but away from the door to the locker room. And finally, some women on the periphery of the horde shrieking while they, pinched, prodded and fondled him leaned against the papered over exit door that opened into the alley. It fell open with a series of loud beeps as though a truck was backing up. The entire circle of humanity fell toward that side once there was no wall supporting everyone on that side. Dick made a desperate calculation. He knew where the T-Car was. If he could get to it, he could trigger the voice activation and the moon roof would open allowing him to dive in. He tried to climb over women to get to the exit, as a score of hands grasped hungrily for his body.

"Where do you think you're going, pretty boy?"

Then, stepping past one woman's arm and over the legs of two others, he was free, out in the night air, in the alley on one side of the building. The horde of women shrieked at the prospect of losing this so very pretty boy. Dick Grayson ran down the alley clad only in his black slingshot, quickly leaving the women, young and old behind.

But the alarm had been noticed by a nearby patrol car and it stopped just past then end of the alley with blue lights flashing. Dick looked down at his nearly naked bare assed self. Uh, no. He could not run past them like that. He reversed field and ran back in the direction from which he'd come. It was like a player returning a kickoff in a football game, only he had no blockers and there were about 75 would be tacklers. Only they didn't want to tackle him. They wanted to hold and pinch and fondle and . . ugh, he didn't want to think of what else. He considered going back in the emergency exit but just a few sprinting strides away, it was shut from the inside by someone.

"Damn!"

Women young and old were getting hands on him as the incognito boy wonder faked and cut around them but he was successfully evading their taking him down. He worked his way past most of them and headed to the other end of the alley. He was just a few seconds sprinting from the end of the alley when he noticed all the shiny little reflections. He stopped short as fast as he could in his bare feet.

"Shit!"

The last 40 feet of the alley was speckled with broken glass. Too far to jump. Too many pieces to try to step between them. And now the women were all running toward him again. In a split second, Dick came up with another option. He ran through the edge of the approaching horde, multiple hands not quite grasping him and made his way to a door at the back of a building on the side of the alley opposite the strip club. He got there on a dead run and tried the knob. He was in luck. It was unlocked. His spririts lifted instantly. At least this humiliating night would get better. Inside he would investigate all his options and make a typically brilliant boy wonder choice and get clothes or some sort of help and get back to the T-car.

But before he could get inside, two of the younger women got their hands around him, one's sweaty claws around his left thigh, the other's around his waist. He made a characteristically smart boy wonder choice and spun free of both their grasps resulting in him having his back to the half opened doorway. He had only to back into the building behind him to be free of all of them then slam the door shut on this ignominious episode. But he couldn't. He tried to but first one woman then the other had a hold of him, had a hold of the ridiculous slingshot.

And its contents.

"Let . . go!" he grunted but they wouldn't.

And so the boy wonder found himself engaged in a tug of way in which he was not only a contestant but also the rope. He pulled his hips back with all his might but couldn't break free of their grasp. If anything, they were stretching the . . rope and getting a better grip with each second.

"Ow! Let go! It's not made for this!" he shouted but the group of women now gathering didn't seem to be bothered by that. Some were laughing and others said something about showing him what it was made for. They were pulling him out of the doorway now, till with a tremendous effort, he got one foot inside the door frame and the other inside the door. He pulled back harder.

"Let me help!" shouted another woman and she tried to add her hands to the tug of war. But, before she could, the one closer to Dick stumbled and she took down the second woman and this third one. With a well timed backward hip thrust, Dick was free of them. He stepped inside the building and slammed the door shut on a chorus of shrieks and grasping little hands, then turned the button on the knob to lock it.

"Thank god!" he whispered.

But inside, wherever he was, was pitch black. He couldn't see a thing. He took one step away from the door and immediately tripped over some low bar or something. He tried to regain his footing and tripped over a power cord connected to something else. He was stumbling with some momentum now, deflecting off some metal chairs and some boxes, picking up speed, knocking over a set of cymbals as he tumbled forward toward a glimmer of light along the floor.

With a loud thud, Dick Grayson tumbled through some heavy curtains and onto a wooden floor in an area of blinding light. There was someone to the side of him, a guy in a speedo swimsuit as music was playing softly. Dick held his hand out to block twin blinding spotlights as he stood up. He could vaguely make out the silhouettes of people at tables in chairs in a semicircle around him.

"I'm sorry," he quickly said, moving his hand and forearm to try to block the twin blinding lights. "I was trying to get away from some women," he explained and was suddenly cognizant of how painful the stretching of the tug of war's . . rope had been

"That's okay. No women here," said one gravelly voice from the audience and Dick could see the silhouettes all moving toward him.

Meanwhile, out on the streets of Jump City, Cyborg turned the T-Car right at the light, again.

"Where could he be?" asked Gar from the back seat.

"Poor Richard," sighed Garth from the front seat . "Accosted by all those women against his will." Sigh.

All six teenage boys had their heads on swivels scanning the area for any sight of Dick Grayson.

"He's gotta be around here somewhere," said Cyborg and he turned right again at the next light, to continue circling the block.

"Wait! There's something!" said Wally pointing toward the gay club they'd quickly exited earlier that evening. The door of the club was flung open and there was a burst of shouting voices followed by someone running out barefoot in leather cowboy clothes, well, a hat, vest and chaps with no seat, anyway.

"Ya think?" asked Cy.

Roy nodded from the back seat and put down the window on that side. Cy pulled over to the curb and stopped the T-car. The cowboy stopped and looked around for a second then sprinted right for them. Cy shifted out of park and back into gear as the cowboy dove through the window and across the laps of the boys in back. They laughed as Cy peeled out pulling away from the curb and they saw it was their pal Dick. Everyone scooted over and scrunched up to make room for him.

"You sure you don't want us to stay here and pick up the other guys in the group?" asked Cy, "The cop, the construction worker, and the indian chief, too?"

Dick pulled off the oversized cowboy hat and shot Cy an angry glance before Gar burst into song.

"Dick likes to stay at the YYYYYYYYY-M-C-A! Dick likes to stay at the YYYYYYYYYY-M-C-A!" complete with stadium singalong hand motions making the letters Y, M, C and A.

The other five burst into laughter.

"Very funny Logan."

"Dude," Ty asked a fuming Dick. "What were you doing in that club? And how'd you get a hold of those assless chaps?"

"Never mind! Do you have my real clothes?"

Wally nodded and started to reach over the seat into the hatchback area.

"No, I'll-I'll scrunch up and put 'em on back there. You guys can have the seats," said Dick.

"You don't want me to make myself into a mouse or something," asked a puzzled Gar.

"No, you guys can have the seats. I'll just crouch back here after I change."


	10. Honeymoon

The high pitched trill of an exotic bird just outside the window was what woke Wally. He opened his eyes and kissed the back of her neck. He gave Jinx a squeeze and held it just to feel her skin a bit longer. He sighed contentedly and looked past her with one eye. The sun was fairly high in a cloudless sky. Late morning? He glanced around the huge bedroom, the only place they'd been the last day and a half. He could not help another contented sigh though he suppressed it to not wake her. But then he felt the rumble of his empty stomach. A stomach typically fed seven times a day just to keep his weight at 166 pounds lets out a mighty rumble when neglected a day and a half. Whether it would risk waking her or not, he had to eat.

He slowly untangled himself from her, eliciting a few soft moans from the pink haired sorceress, and sat up on the edge of the bed. Where was that swimsuit? He vaguely remembered one of the times in that day and a half, the two of them, against the wall, knocking over his bag on the nearby chair and its contents spilling out.

It was just lucky he'd checked before they left the Tower. There was such a feeling of momentum in the air. About to jet away. Honeymoon. New life together. And it was all wrapped in such a feeling of optimistic expectation. He could barely stop for a moment. Come on Wally! Robin's waiting in the T-Jet! He could barely make himself stop in the site of the old life for even a moment. If he hadn't been so sure, he might not have. The moment he started opening the bag, she got a look on her beautiful face, a combination of about to burst out laughing and the look of a child caught at something. Eventually laughing won out as he removed the little black slingshot from his bag.

"You were going to have me wear that on the beach at that place?"

"Oh. Hahahaha! How did, hahaha, how did, haha, that get in there?" She could barely even say it.

"I can imagine."

"Speedy said you looked great in it and that you loved wearing it. He said it was much better for you than that squarecut thing you prefer."

"Never listen to Speedy," had been his only response and he zipped over to the dresser and replaced it, smiled at her smiling at him and they were off up to the roof to leave their old life and honeymoon in their new life.

Ah, there it is, Wally spied the edge of the stretchy black fabric among the folds of an errant sheet. He pulled on the squarecut swimsuit, quite minimal enough, in his opinion and made his way out to the kitchen.

Like the rest of the place, the kitchen was lavishly appointed. But, then that should be expected for an island mansion dubbed the "Billionaires' Time Share"

That'd been the headline over the article in the Wall Street Journal that that Bruce Wayne guy had sent to them. And even that article hadn't said exactly where it was. It mentioned that it was a mansion on one of three islands not quite in either the Indian or Pacific Oceans. The article mentioned Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet and Bruce Wayne as some of the half dozen billionaires reputed to sometimes vacation there. It talked about a gleaming mansion of bamboo, mahogany, steel and glass, with every feature the most expensive imaginable.

Wally would have agreed with that assesment. And the way they stocked the kitchen was consistent with the headline. Looking in the giant fridge, he saw platters of lobster and shrimp, other meats and all sorts of delicacies. He ate a handful of some kind of truffle and foie gras thing. There was a little label on each platter. He wolfed down some shrimp and lobster dipping it in some sort of culinary wonder of a sauce. At least it was supposed to be. It may as well have been the stuff they put on Big Macs for all Wally cared. As a speedster, he had unique requirements for quantity of food that left him little room to be picky about its quality. His bullet train metabolism temporarily sated, Wally rubbed the eight squares of his abs and craned his neck around the corner to look down the hall at Jinx. She was just starting to stir, stretching atop the covers. A thought occurred to him, something he remembered from their evening arrival a day and a half ago.

"Good morning!" he half shouted to her.

"Good morning," she fairly purred through a happy sigh.

"I'll be right back. I'm going to bring some stuff to the guards."

A slightly modulated sigh was her only answer.

He remembered what the guy on the boat, half yacht, half speedboat that delivered them to the island had said. "Don't worry about your safety. There are four heavily armed guards at the other end of the island and another boat, sort of a PT boat constantly on patrol."

The guy had gone on to say how the guards were hand picked for their total dedication. He'd gone on about round the clock protection etc in a way meant to reassure Wally and Jinx, pretending to be just regular newlweds somehow connected to Bruce Wayne, he in a suit and she in a bright dress and pink scarf. But it'd sort of made Wally feel sorry for the poor guys. He didn't like the idea of guys knocking themselves out to guard him and Jinx and being treated like a lower caste or something.

So, he gathered up a platter with lobster, shrimp, some other meat and some of that truffle-foie gras stuff and started out the mansion's front door and then a hundred yards down the path at the end of the manicured lawn to the guard building. He was greeted at the door by a couple of the guards with fairly heavy machine guns slung over their shoulders. They were Indonesian, he guessed. Halfway in darkness between Dick and Cy and all a couple inches shorter than him. They reacted with big grins at the sight of him with the platter. One called inside the door and the other two guards came out to meet him as well.

Wally stepped inside the door carrying the platter and put it down on a desk. The guard building was a pretty sparse 20 by 20 structure, not much more than a bunk bed and some desks and chairs with some racks for additional machine guns and what looked like bazookas and a Stinger anti-aircraft missile on the wall. He offered the platter to the guys and they were grateful. They bantered a little bit back and forth. A couple of them grinned at him a certain way. He knew immediately what it meant even before they glanced toward the mansion and chuckled, "You and her! Hehehe!!" And he saw the other two looking at him a certain way. He wished he'd worn a shirt. They were looking at what incredible shape he was in with a sort air of assessment that wasn't quite skeptical but was obviously part of putting together some sort of puzzle. He was about to leave, was shaking hands with a couple of them when their apparent leader chuckled.

"Kind of funny, the four of us assigned to protect you and the pink haired girl."

Wally reflexively went into protective mode. "Huh? Her hair's not . . . that was just the scarf she wore over it when we arrived."

The leader patted Wally's muscular shoulder. "Look at you, huh?"

"It on the CNN all day that day," said one of the others less accomplished in english. "The-the orange and the pink, they marry. It on the CNN over and over that day. And look you at!" he grinned, pointing to Wally's torso then his hair.

Wally sighed. Oh what the hell. He nodded and the guards all burst into grins anew. All four vowed to keep quiet. They asked how well he knew Bruce Wayne to get the place for a week. Wally shrugged. They really didn't know the guy at all. He was just this weird multi-billionaire type who had helped pay for the Tower and who they sort of had to invite to the wedding because of it and then the guy had told them, after receiving his invite, that he probably wouldn't be able to make it but was giving them one of his weeks at this place for their honeymoon. Wally didn't mention the additional check.

"Bruce Wayne, he a jerk," said one of the other guys.

"Never acknowledge that we here," said another to nods of agreement all around.

"The Steve Jobs, he the worst. Worst. Worst. Worst. He treat everybody like the shit. Everybody."

"That guy think nobody any good but him." Nods of agreement all around.

"Beel Gates not bad," said another to more nods of agreement. "He and wife here right before you."

"Bill Gates of . . . ?" Wally had started to ask before his eyes went wide recalling something and he burst into laughter. The guards had asked what was so funny. He struggled to tell the story. The middle of the night. My wife and I about to . . . um . . . again. A blind reach into the drawer of the nightstand where the box of rubbers was. Then a frustrating inability to get the next one on. How could that be? The others were just enough. But this one . . . not nearly enough. Not nearly. He hadn't suddenly gotten twice as big as the last time! It didn't matter how he tried. He couldn't wear that. Jinx chuckling at his difficulty. Then, with the light turned on, he could see the label on the foil wrapper.

MICROSOFT.

Why would anyone want to call it . . "micro"!? Or "soft", for that matter?!

Bill Gates.

The guards fell over laughing. Wally tried to shake hands and say goodbye but they begged him for a trick. Guys always wanted a demonstration. Always. Reluctantly, he agreed. You catch bullets? Wally nodded casually. The guards all grinned. Then the leader pulled the clip out of his machine gun and pulled the top three bullets out of the clip. With a pocket knife he scratched marks into all three then replaced them in the clip and smacked the clip back in place. He leaned the machine gun barrel out one of the windows and looked over to Wally. Wally nodded.

PowPowPow!!!

He fired a three shell burst over the ocean. Wally raced out the building, down to the water and then sprinted over the water, catching first one then the second then the third bullets like a shortstop catching liners off the bat before racing back to the guard building and stopping in front of the lead guard with three marked shells on his open palm.

The guards hooted and clapped and patted Wally's back for a bit.

"Okay, I have to go now," said Wally and they shook his hand and congratulated him on the wedding and two of them again grinned at him. You and the pink haired girl. Hehehe!!

Wally waved at them from the path as he made his way back into the heavily vegetated area the path wound through on his way back to the mansion. He hadn't seen it from that side. It was impressive. But then, a 9,000 square foot mansion on a manicured lawn just 50 feet from the ocean's edge is bound to look impressive.

He thought of going for a swim. It had been more than 30 seconds since he'd eaten, Flash's rule. But only if Jinx was swimming, too. He wanted to swim with her. And, for some reason, he thought of how Dick and Roy and some of the others had looked at him the day of the wedding. They couldn't believe he wasn't more nervous, more intimidated by the commitment. He searched his thoughts to try and find some of that sort of sentiment, the reaction they thought he would be having. But it didn't feel like a big commitment, like something different. Roy had gone on and on about a ball and chain. And he'd been frustrated at Wally's expression of "What the fuck are you talking about, Harper?!"

This wasn't anything new. Oh, the mansion was new and the title of husband was new and the ceremony and all. But the commitment had started that night at the museum.

Hmmph. Another odd thought occurred to him. Batman's expression. How the hell Batman had ever become a Justice of the Peace, anyway?! He'd have to get Dick to explain that some other time. But it had sure been convenient. No need to bring in another civilian to a wedding attended by more than a hundred "capes" as Jinx said they sometimes called heroes at the Academy. But, gods, it was a happy occasion. Did Batman not understand the concept of happiness? The way he'd spoken it to each of them! "And do you . . (death glare) Wallace, take (death glare) Virginia to be your . . . . till DEATH do you part?" He totally emphasized death. Totally. There was no denying it. Was he saying he'd kill us if we broke our vows? That's how he looked at me. He looked at her the same way, didn't he? DEATH!

Gods! Chill, Bats!

Still, the whole thing had gone off without a hitch. And he remembered that first look at her when she pulled up her veil.

So.

Beautiful.

And he remembered their first married kiss. First of dozens, just at the reception. What a scene? All the arrangements coming off just right. Jinx and her mother so proud of it. And a hundred heroes all enjoying themselves. And all those heroes cutting loose. Green Arrow! What a wild man! Even without Cy's filming everything, it would stay in his mind forever. And there had been Flash, so proud and so happy. He hadn't been anything close to that happy since Aunt Iris was taken away. And even Robin had been kind of emotional, standing there in his best man's suit congratulating him afterward with almost, maybe a little glassy eyes. Robin!?!? Tears?!?

My-my eyes sometimes take a while to adjust to light without the UV filter in my mask.

Was it right to laugh at him and tell him that he was a "fucking liar" right then and there and not let the truth be known by both of them but unspoken? Oh well. Too late now. Anyways, somebody had to call Dick on his stuff some of the time.

And then, whoosh, we've only just begun. Jetting out to this hyper exclusive vacation spot thanks to that Bruce Wayne dude, who only showed up at the end of the wedding and then just sort of stood around in the back. What a weird air that guy has around him! And then he was more generous than anyone. Wally shook his head. Go figure. A week here then a week in Paris.

At the front door to the mansion, he heard her shout from the little beach next to the dock.

"How 'bout a swim?"

He nodded and watched her jump off the dock in her skimpy white bikini into the crystal clear water of the lagoon. He zipped the platter back to the kitchen and then out to the dock. She waved to him from 50 feet out. He dove in and went to her like a bullet. The water was comfortably warm and brightly colored fish swam about around them. They swam about for a while, grinning at each other in unspoken recollections of the last day and a half in the bedroom and promises of the five and a half days to come. Eventually, they both pulled themselves up onto the dock and stood there smiling at each other and overlooking the picturesque south seas view till finally she burst out laughing.

"That was the funniest thing the other night, you, Dick, Roy and Ty! Oh gods! Those slingshot costumes! And the way you danced!"

"Hey! That was the way they told us to dance. That's not what I do in clubs."

"Okay, but really, what happened?"

"We trusted Speedy and we listened to his advice on what to do for a party."

"Never listen to Speedy, Wally. Outside of advice on a fight and munitions, when Roy speaks, just put your fingers in your ears."

She demonstrated the appropriate technique. "La la la! I can't hear you, Roy Harper! La la la."

"It started out okay. But I ended up practically getting mauled by these old ladies spraying champagne on me and . . . . . . . licking it off in that back room."

"Oh, is that what went on there for you?"

"Yeah," he grumbled avoiding eye contact. "This 300 pound woman picked me up by my . . costume and carried me in there and they just kept covering me with champagne and chocolate and whipped cream and . . licking it off."

Jinx laughed at his embarassment. "Ahahahaha! Oh gods! You didn't realize women might think of you that way, you with your speedster buns?"

She patted him.

Wally shrugged and there was a pause. "Hey, you asked if that was what went on in there for me like you thought it would be something different."

Jinx smiled. "You didn't see us carry Dick in there?"

"No. I was busy being Wally the exotic dancer."

Jinx snickered. "Um, well, Wonder Girl and Starfire picked him up like he weighed nothing and brought him into that champagne room right after you left."

"And . . . ?"

Jinx tried to suppress a huge smile. "Well, it seems like Bat Girl had some left over bad feelings toward Robin."

"And?"

Wally had to wait a minute while Jinx overcame some guffaws and finally composed herself.

"I told her about all your insane protect the secret identity stuff you'd done before joining the Titans. I mentioned how, once, you'd had to let some older kids paddle your buns 25 times in front of the whole 8th grade. And she thought that was really funny. And she also remembered Robin not liking you before he ever met you and how he used to say he was three times as tough as you. I guess he repeated that a couple times to her. Three times as tough as Kid Flash. Sooooooo . . . hah, she found this cheese board in a corner of the champagne room. It was shaped just like a paddle, really. And three times 25 . . . hahahahahahaha!"

"She whacked Robin 75 times!?!"

Jinx doubled over laughing again before composing herself.

"Well, not just her. Starfire, too and also these two middle aged women who followed us in because they thought Dick Grayson was just the prettiest boy ever with his long lashes and light blue eyes and nicely toned if still, kind of short body."

Wally couldn't help but laugh. "Oh my god. Poor Dick. So that's why . . "

"So that's why what?"

Wally chuckled. "Well, he was acting a little weird before the ceremony. We were all in the kitchen talking and he wouldn't take a seat. It-it just seemed funny."

"What were you talking about?"

"Oh, mostly how the guys all thought I would be nervous but I wasn't."

"I had the same thing with the girls. Argent and Wonder Girl kept asking why I wasn't nervous. I was, like, what the hell should I be nervous about."

"I think all our friends were just thinking of themselves in that position that day."

"Oh, totally."

"But I liked having everyone around."

"Oh, gods, I so completely second that emotion. I loved going out the nine of us together. That sort of social feeling, my peers. People who I don't have to explain anything to, who have the same worries as me, well at least some of them. I really enjoyed that."

"It was the same way with the guys. Before we went out, they all came up to me, separately, but I think each guy thought he might've been the only one. And they all said that they thought it was right, you know, you and me."

"Really?"

Wally nodded. "Well . . . . except for Speedy."

Jinx rolled her eyes. "What did he say?"

"Well I don't remember his exact words, but he thought I should go out and play the field, play the entire field, the way he does."

"Batting from both sides of the plate?"

Wally chuckled. "Yeah."

Jinx rolled her eyes again. "And did he try to explain this advice?"

Wally shrugged. "Some weird claim about enjoying sex more."

Jinx half chuckled then leaned over toward him, her lips just an inch from his as she simultaneously reached and hooked both her thumbs inside the waistband of his stretchy swimsuit then pulled down as the kissed him. When their lips parted she whispered from an inch away.

"What'd I tell you? Never listen to Speedy."


End file.
